Standard equipment inside computers, printers and millions of other electronic devices can be hacked using sound waves, per a team of security researchers at Red Balloon Security.
By taking control of the physical prongs on general-purpose input/output circuits, the attack program vibrates them at a frequency of the researchers’ choosing - some audible some not. An AM radio antenna located just a short distance away can pick up the vibrations.
Red Balloon Security lead researcher Ang Cui dubbed the makeshift transmitting antenna “Funtenna”. The channel would be hard to detect because no traffic logs would catch data leaving the premises.
At the annual security conference 'Black Hat' in Las Vegas, Nevada Wednesday, ahead of his talk, Cui showed the system in action. Cui said after his talk, he would release “proof-of-concept” code to allow other researchers and potentially malicious hackers, to build on his work.
Cui said hackers would need an antenna close to the targeted building, in order to pick up the sound waves. He added that hackers would need to find some way to get inside a targeted machine and convert the desired data to the format, for transmission.
The devices' development over the past two years is yet another illustration that a broadening array of devices can be manipulated in unpredictable ways by hackers. As electronic devices and gadgets grow more complex, hackers increase their advantage over defenders.
Contributed by Millennium Traders
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