Got a used business laptop and found a recessed dongle in it. The original owner says they have no clue, that it’s been in there since they got it. There’s no way a dongle is keeping this thing running, is there? I’ve already swapped the OS, if that matters at all
Update: yubikey! Thank you all for the information, I’m definitely still learning
It looks a lot like a Yubikey, which is used to securely authenticate to company resources like a VPN. Fortunately, unlike losing a hard drive, a Yubikey can be deauthorized by the company and thus the device becomes useless for malicious use.
So if you want to use that USB port for something else, it shouldn’t be a problem to remove a Yubikey for the prior user’s employer.
Can confirm, I have one just like this. The giveaway is the conductive metal bit, to have it be able to detect finger taps.
You should be safe to remove it. It probably has some info stamped on the metal somewhere.
I’ve never had a need to use a Yubikey, but is that the button which spews gibberish into DMs? I’ve seen that a lot at work on Teams lol
