Chrome OS will block USB access when locked: Here's how
Google plans to upgrade the defenses of Chrome OS. The company, according to a recent report in Chrome Story, is working on a feature that would disable the USB ports of a machine running the light, web-based operating system. This way, it will prevent the Chromebooks from third-party attacks as long as they remain locked. Here's more.
Locking Chromebook would disable USB access
Just recently, the folks at Chrome Story spotted an internal flag while digging into the source code of the Canary build of Chrome OS. The flag revealed a feature, dubbed USBGuard, to block newly connected USB devices at the lock screen. The description of the feature suggested it would prevent the operation of newly connected USBs unless the Chromebook in question is unlocked.
And, already connected devices will continue to work
USBGuard will only disable USB access for new devices and the ones already connected, like Mouse or Keyboard, will continue to work. The idea of a capability like this is to protect Chromebooks from unauthorized access or malicious attackers who may use malware-fed USB drives to infect your Chromebook. When the machine won't read or execute commands from the drive, it can't be compromised.
However, you could whitelist certain devices for access
Having that said, it is worth noting that the feature might also come with an option to whitelist certain USB devices. Another flag spotted along with the main feature indicated this capability, which might let you keep USB access enabled for certain devices like your own USB flash drive, Keyboard, or Mouse. All this could upgrade Chromebook security by a significant margin.
When these features would be rolled out?
As of now, there's no word on when Google would push these features on a stable version of Chrome OS. However, as it has been spotted on Canary build of the web-based operating system, hope is that Google would launch it on the stable version in the coming months. When this happens, you'd have to enable Chrome OS flag 'chrome://flags/#enable-usbguard' to access the feature.
