{"id":503578,"date":"2023-08-08T16:47:12","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T14:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=503578"},"modified":"2023-08-08T16:56:40","modified_gmt":"2023-08-08T14:56:40","slug":"cyberattack-steals-data-by-hearing-you-type","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/503578-cyberattack-steals-data-by-hearing-you-type.html","title":{"rendered":"Cyberattack steals data by hearing you type"},"content":{"rendered":"

British cybersecurity researchers have published a study<\/a><\/strong> revealing a hypothetical cyberattack that could steal your personal data just by hearing you type.<\/p>\n

The method leverages a deep-learning-based algorithm that analyses sounds produced by keystrokes to figure out what the person is typing.<\/p>\n

Their testing found that the cyberattack could accurately decode keystrokes 95% of the time when analysed through a smartphone microphone.<\/p>\n

It was accurate 93% of the time when decoding over a Zoom call.<\/p>\n

“This paper presents a practical implementation of a state-of-the-art deep learning model in order to classify laptop keystrokes, using a smartphone-integrated microphone,” the paper reads.<\/p>\n

“When trained on keystrokes recorded by a nearby phone, the classifier achieved an accuracy of 95%, the highest accuracy seen without the use of a language model.”<\/p>\n

The algorithm then analyses the audio recording and translates into readable text.<\/p>\n

“Our results prove the practicality of these side channel attacks via off-the-shelf equipment and algorithms,” the researchers said.<\/p>\n

The team listed several mitigation techniques to protect users against similar attacks, with the first being a simple change of typing style.<\/p>\n

It noted that when touch typing \u2014 typing without looking at the keyboard \u2014 was used, keystroke recognition accuracy dropped to 40%.<\/p>\n

Another mitigation technique is the use of randomised passwords using multiple cases.<\/p>\n

“Passwords containing full words may be at greater risk of attack,” they said.<\/p>\n

Regarding potential attacks over video-conferencing platforms like Zoom, the team recommends that users play sounds from a speaker close to the microphone or “mixing sounds into the transmitted audio locally”.<\/p>\n

\n

Now read: Police hiring 10,000 new officers<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Testing found that the cyberattack could accurately decode keystrokes 95% of the time when analysed through a smartphone microphone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":503582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[11941,88412,44160,44953,22845],"class_list":["post-503578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-audio-attack","tag-cyberattack","tag-keystrokes","tag-machine-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503732,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503578\/revisions\/503732"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}