Adversaries may physically introduce computer accessories, networking hardware, or other computing devices into a system or network that can be used as a vector to gain access. Rather than just connecting and distributing payloads via removable storage (i.e. Replication Through Removable Media), more robust hardware additions can be used to introduce new functionalities and/or features into a system that can then be abused.

While public references of usage by threat actors are scarce, many red teams/penetration testers leverage hardware additions for initial access. Commercial and open source products can be leveraged with capabilities such as passive network tapping, network traffic modification (i.e. Adversary-in-the-Middle), keystroke injection, kernel memory reading via DMA, addition of new wireless access points to an existing network, and others.^{[1],[2],[3],[4]}

References

1. Michael Ossmann. (2011, February 17). Throwing Star LAN Tap. Retrieved March 30, 2018.
2. Nick Aleks. (2015, November 7). Weapons of a Pentester - Understanding the virtual & physical tools used by white/black hat hackers. Retrieved March 30, 2018.
3. Ulf Frisk. (2016, August 5). Direct Memory Attack the Kernel. Retrieved March 30, 2018.
4. Robert McMillan. (2012, March 3). The Pwn Plug is a little white box that can hack your network. Retrieved March 30, 2018.

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