Wednesday, November 23, 2016

RMF 24: Watch out, you can eavesdrop… own headphones – Interia

if someone is not lucky, it podsłucha it even… speaker his laptop. Scientists from the University of Ben Gurion in be’er Szewie observe from the malware that can spy even a very careful user of electronics. Don’t just slap a webcam and microphone, hackers can also use speakers or headphones, which, at least, still seemed secure.

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Innocent headphones can become a pair of sensitive microphones

“the Fact that the headphones that speakers are, in essence, built on the same principle as a microphone, and an audio port on a PC can be reprogrammed from the output to the input that makes our computer has a weakness, which hackers can easily use the” , says Professor Yuval Elovici, head of the SHREDDER Cyber Security Research Center (CSRC).

His group explained how widely we use the device can be used against us and showed the program SPEAKE(a)R, which can do it. His case innocent headphones can become a pair of sensitive microphones, so that the user doesn’t suspect anything.

“some of the reasons people like the head of Facebook mark Zuckerberg zaklejają microphones and cameras on their laptops,” adds Mordechai Guri, head of the centre for research and development at the CSRC. “If, however, you can seal the microphone, it is difficult oklejać speakers or headphones”.

Modern audio cards allow reprogramming of the headphone outputs into the microphone input. Researchers from the CSRC showed that the popular headphones can in such conditions be a decent set of microphones, and modify conventional laptop or computer in device to listen. “We have shown that these headphones provide the sound recording readable even from a distance of several meters,” says Dr. Yosef Solewicz, acoustic machine with the CSRC.

What to do with it? You can turn off the whole track in the audio, but it’s pretty impractical. You can equip your computer software that will alarm about attempts such interference. You can ensure that unused headphones were always disabled. But what to do with a built in speaker? Safest is probably… to seal his mouth.

Gregory Jasinski

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