Breaching Air-Gap Security With Radio

An anonymous reader writes: Security researcher Mordechai Guri with the guidance of Prof. Yuval Elovici from the cyber security labs at Ben-Gurion University in Israel presented at MALCON 2014 a breakthrough method ("AirHopper") for leaking data from an isolated computer to a mobile phone without the presence of a network. In highly secure facilities the assumption today is that data can not leak outside of an isolated internal network. It is called air-gap security. AirHopper demonstrates how the computer display can be used for sending data from the air-gapped computer to a near by smartphone. The published paper and a demonstration video are at the link.

Comments

Tempest

[Anonymous Coward]

This is nothing new. They've been doing this for decades with Tempest.

Re:Tempest

[Anonymous Coward]

The 'news' is that they also offer techniques to turn off the screen to avoid detection, they developed a (for this purpose working) data transmission method, offer a variety of signal hiding techniques and use it to exfiltrate not images of the CRT or LCD screen itself but modulate binary or textual data with the VGA cable serving as radio antenna while the screen is turned off. Also where before it would probably take somebody a lot of time and devotion to develop hardware for a receiver, the paper on top explains how to turn a cheap Android based phone into one. They also did a working proof of concept. I guess none of it all is in itself 'news'. But the combination of different techniques is an interesting use-case.

Van Eck phreaking

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

This isn't new. Wim Van Eck did it back in 1985, without a smartphone.