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Wednesday 19 October 2011
How hackers track what you type on smartphone
WASHINGTON: A research team at Georgia Tech claims that it has discovered how to use a users smartphone to track what the person is typing on the keyboard.
The smartphone accelerometer, an internal device that detects when and how the phone is tilted, senses keyboard vibrations and deciphers complete sentences with up to 80 per cent accuracy.
"We first tried our experiments with an iPhone 3GS, and the results were difficult to read," Patrick Traynor, assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Computer Science, said.
"But then we tried an iPhone 4, which has an added gyroscope to clean up the accelerometernoise, and the results were much better. We believe that most smartphones made in the past two years are sophisticated enough to launch this attack," he said.
The technique works through probability and by detecting pairs of keystrokes, rather than individual keys. It models "keyboard events" in pairs, then determines whether the pair of keys pressed is on the left versus right side of the keyboard, and whether they are close together or far apart.
After the system has determined these characteristics for each pair of keys depressed, it compares the results against a preloaded dictionary, each word of which has been broken down along similar measurements, i.e., are the letters left/right, near/far on a standard QWERTY keyboard.
The technique works reliably only on words of three or more letters. "The way we see this attack working is that you, the phone's owner, would request or be asked to download an innocuous-looking application, which doesn't ask you for the use of any suspicious phone sensors," Henry Carter, one of the study's co-authors, said.
"Then the keyboard-detection malware is turned on, and the next time you place your phone next to the keyboard and start typing, it starts listening," carter said.
The study has been published in the paper "(sp)iPhone: Decoding Vibrations From Nearby Keyboards Using Mobile Phone Accelerometers," and will be presented on 20th October.
The smartphone accelerometer, an internal device that detects when and how the phone is tilted, senses keyboard vibrations and deciphers complete sentences with up to 80 per cent accuracy.
"We first tried our experiments with an iPhone 3GS, and the results were difficult to read," Patrick Traynor, assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Computer Science, said.
"But then we tried an iPhone 4, which has an added gyroscope to clean up the accelerometernoise, and the results were much better. We believe that most smartphones made in the past two years are sophisticated enough to launch this attack," he said.
The technique works through probability and by detecting pairs of keystrokes, rather than individual keys. It models "keyboard events" in pairs, then determines whether the pair of keys pressed is on the left versus right side of the keyboard, and whether they are close together or far apart.
After the system has determined these characteristics for each pair of keys depressed, it compares the results against a preloaded dictionary, each word of which has been broken down along similar measurements, i.e., are the letters left/right, near/far on a standard QWERTY keyboard.
The technique works reliably only on words of three or more letters. "The way we see this attack working is that you, the phone's owner, would request or be asked to download an innocuous-looking application, which doesn't ask you for the use of any suspicious phone sensors," Henry Carter, one of the study's co-authors, said.
"Then the keyboard-detection malware is turned on, and the next time you place your phone next to the keyboard and start typing, it starts listening," carter said.
The study has been published in the paper "(sp)iPhone: Decoding Vibrations From Nearby Keyboards Using Mobile Phone Accelerometers," and will be presented on 20th October.
New industrial virus Duqu on prowl
WASHINGTON: First there was the Stuxnetcomputer virus that wreaked havoc on Iran's nuclear program. Now comes "Duqu," which researchers said appears to be quite similar.
Security software firm Symantec said in a report it was alerted by a research lab with international connections last week to a malicious code that "appeared to be very similar to Stuxnet." It was named Duqu because it creates files with "DQ" in the prefix.
The US Department of Homeland Security said it was aware of the reports and was taking action.
"DHS' Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team has issued a public alert and will continue working with the cyber security research community to gather and analyze data and disseminate further information to our critical infrastructure partners as it becomes available," a DHS official said.
Symantec said samples recovered from computer systems in Europe and a detailed report from the unnamed research lab confirmed the new threat was similar to Stuxnet.
"Parts of Duqu are nearly identical to Stuxnet, but with a completely different purpose," Symantec said. "Duqu is essentially the precursor to a future Stuxnet-like attack."
Stuxnet is a malicious software that targets widely used industrial control systems built by German firm Siemens. It is believed to have crippled centrifuges Iran uses to enrich uranium for what the United States and some European nations have charged is a covert nuclear weapons program.
Cyber experts say its sophistication indicates that Stuxnet was produced possibly by the United States or Israel.
The new Duqu computer virus is designed to gather data from industrial control system manufacturers to make it easier to launch an attack in the future by capturing information including keystrokes.
"The attackers are looking for information such as design documents that could help them mount a future attack on an industrial control facility," Symantec said.
"Duqu does not contain any code related to industrial control systems and is primarily a remote access Trojan (RAT)," Symantec said. "The threat does not self-replicate."
Duqu shares "a great deal of code with Stuxnet" but instead of being designed to sabotage an industrial control system, the new virus is designed to gain remote access capabilities.
"The creators of Duqu had access to the source code of Stuxnet," Symantec said.
Security software firm Symantec said in a report it was alerted by a research lab with international connections last week to a malicious code that "appeared to be very similar to Stuxnet." It was named Duqu because it creates files with "DQ" in the prefix.
The US Department of Homeland Security said it was aware of the reports and was taking action.
"DHS' Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team has issued a public alert and will continue working with the cyber security research community to gather and analyze data and disseminate further information to our critical infrastructure partners as it becomes available," a DHS official said.
Symantec said samples recovered from computer systems in Europe and a detailed report from the unnamed research lab confirmed the new threat was similar to Stuxnet.
"Parts of Duqu are nearly identical to Stuxnet, but with a completely different purpose," Symantec said. "Duqu is essentially the precursor to a future Stuxnet-like attack."
Stuxnet is a malicious software that targets widely used industrial control systems built by German firm Siemens. It is believed to have crippled centrifuges Iran uses to enrich uranium for what the United States and some European nations have charged is a covert nuclear weapons program.
Cyber experts say its sophistication indicates that Stuxnet was produced possibly by the United States or Israel.
The new Duqu computer virus is designed to gather data from industrial control system manufacturers to make it easier to launch an attack in the future by capturing information including keystrokes.
"The attackers are looking for information such as design documents that could help them mount a future attack on an industrial control facility," Symantec said.
"Duqu does not contain any code related to industrial control systems and is primarily a remote access Trojan (RAT)," Symantec said. "The threat does not self-replicate."
Duqu shares "a great deal of code with Stuxnet" but instead of being designed to sabotage an industrial control system, the new virus is designed to gain remote access capabilities.
"The creators of Duqu had access to the source code of Stuxnet," Symantec said.
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