Your new post is loading...
Dubbed “AirHopper” by the researchers at Cyber Security Labs at Ben Gurion University, the proof-of-concept technique allows hackers and spies to surreptitiously siphon passwords and other data from an infected computer using radio signals generated and transmitted by the computer and received by a mobile phone. The research was conducted by Mordechai Guri, Gabi Kedma, Assaf Kachlon, and overseen by their advisor Yuval Elovici.
The attack borrows in part from previous research showing how radio signals (.pdf) can be generated by a computer’s video card (.pdf). The researchers in Israel have developed malware that exploits this vulnerability by generating radio signals that can transmit modulated data that is then received and decoded by the FM radio receiver built into mobile phones. FM receivers come installed in many mobile phones as an emergency backup, in part, for receiving radio transmissions when the internet and cell networks are down. Using this function, however, attackers can turn a ubiquitous and seemingly innocuous device into an ingenious spy tool. Though a company or agency may think it has protected its air-gapped network by detaching it from the outside world, the mobile phones on employee desktops and in their pockets still provide attackers with a vector to reach classified and other sensitive data.
Via Gust MEES
Dubbed “AirHopper” by the researchers at Cyber Security Labs at Ben Gurion University, the proof-of-concept technique allows hackers and spies to surreptitiously siphon passwords and other data from an infected computer using radio signals generated and transmitted by the computer and received by a mobile phone. The research was conducted by Mordechai Guri, Gabi Kedma, Assaf Kachlon, and overseen by their advisor Yuval Elovici.
The attack borrows in part from previous research showing how radio signals(.pdf) can be generated by a computer’s video card (.pdf). The researchers in Israel have developed malware that exploits this vulnerability by generating radio signals that can transmit modulated data that is then received and decoded by the FM radio receiver built into mobile phones. FM receivers come installed in many mobile phones as an emergency backup, in part, for receiving radio transmissions when the internet and cell networks are down. Using this function, however, attackers can turn a ubiquitous and seemingly innocuous device into an ingenious spy tool. Though a company or agency may think it has protected its air-gapped network by detaching it from the outside world, the mobile phones on employee desktops and in their pockets still provide attackers with a vector to reach classified and other sensitive data.