{"id":79001,"date":"2013-05-30T14:00:26","date_gmt":"2013-05-30T12:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=79001"},"modified":"2013-05-30T14:01:09","modified_gmt":"2013-05-30T12:01:09","slug":"music-can-trigger-mobile-malware-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/79001-music-can-trigger-mobile-malware-research.html","title":{"rendered":"Music can trigger mobile malware: research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) showed that it is possible to trigger malware hidden in mobile devices using music, lighting, or vibration.<\/p>\n

In a research paper titled \u201cSensing-Enabled Channels for Hard-to-Detect Command and Control of Mobile Devices\u201d, the researchers reported that they triggered malware hidden in mobile devices using music from 17 metres away in a crowded hallway.<\/p>\n

The researchers also successfully triggered malware using lighting from a TV or computer monitor, vibrations from a low frequency speaker, and magnetic fields.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go to an arena or Starbucks, you don\u2019t expect the music to have a hidden message, so this is a big paradigm shift because the public sees only e-mails and the Internet as vulnerable to malware attacks,\u201d said Ragib Hasan, assistant professor of computer and information sciences and director of the SECRET computing lab.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe devote a lot of our efforts towards securing traditional communication channels. But when bad guys use such hidden and unexpected methods to communicate, it is difficult if not impossible to detect that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Trigger<\/a>

Trigger malware using a light channel<\/p><\/div>\n

The bandwidth used to trigger the malware was as low as five bits per second, significantly less than the typical bandwidth used by devices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis kind of attack is sophisticated and difficult to build, but it will become increasingly easier to accomplish in the future as technology improves,\u201d said Shams Zawoad, a doctoral student who worked on the research.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to create defenses before these attacks become widespread, so it is better that we find out these techniques first and stay one step ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Trigger<\/a>

Trigger malware using a magnetic channel<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Trigger<\/a>

Trigger malware using an audio channel<\/p><\/div>\n

Images courtesy of the\u00a0University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Secret lab<\/em><\/p>\n

More on mobile security<\/h3>\n

Mobile malware and your money<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

SA identity theft scam alert<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Beware cellphone cyber-crime in South Africa: Norton<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Bad online passwords: are you guilty?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That irritating Justin Bieber song may do more than merely make you doubt humanity – it can trigger malware in your mobile device<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":77700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[35,19689],"class_list":["post-79001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-headline","tag-mobile-malware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79001"}],"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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79001"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79053,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79001\/revisions\/79053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}