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Proof-of-Concept Android Trojan Uses Motion Sensors To Steal Passwords

Posted by Soulskill on from the for-when-normal-keylogging-is-just-too-precise dept.

judgecorp writes "TapLogger, a proof-of-concept Trojan for Android developed by resarchers at Pennsylvania State University and IBM, uses information from the phone's motion sensor to deduce what keys the user has tapped (PDF), thus revealing otherwise-hidden information such as passwords and PINs."

5 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. yikes! by noh8rz3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We talk often about mobile viruses and I've become somewhat inured to it (another malware embedded in rogue angry birds? yawn). But this is scary, brave new world scary.

    1. Re:yikes! by tchuladdiass · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The reason this is significant is that apps are usually installed with limited access to items it doesn't need. So normally a bad app won't be able to steal passwords, or lift your address book, unless you give it permissions. This demonstration is simply showing a covert channel for information leakage that people may not have thought about before.

  2. I find this hard to believe by ThunderBird89 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I find it hard to believe that the motion sensor can be sensitive enough to detect such minuscule changes, when I sometimes need to tap the phone against the desk to have it acknowledge rotation. Also, if the phone is placed on the table to enter the passwords, most of the supposed motion is eliminated, significantly frustrating the attack.

    --
    Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
    1. Re:I find this hard to believe by SJHillman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not a perfect attack, but it doesn't need to be successful against every single user on every single phone. Most modern smartphones don't require physical abuse to register motion and most smartphone users don't put the phone down, put the password in, then pick it back up every single time. How about an analogy? Let's say there's a PC virus that exploits the wheel function of a USB mouse. Not every PC will have a USB mouse with a wheel, and even among those that do, not every user will use it. However, there's still enough vulnerable PCs that this theoretical virus could be highly successful.

  3. Simple fix by PPH · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just have the password entry widget lock the accelerometer (or whatever) resource while in focus.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.