Wireless Keylogger Masquerades as USB Phone Charger

msm1267 writes: Hardware hacker and security researcher Samy Kamkar has released a slick new device that masquerades as a typical USB wall charger but in fact houses a keylogger capable of recording keystrokes from nearby wireless keyboards. The device is known as KeySweeper, and Kamkar has released the source code and instructions for building one of your own. The components are inexpensive and easily available, and include an Arduino microcontroller, the charger itself, and a handful of other bits. When it's plugged into a wall socket, the KeySweeper will connect to a nearby Microsoft wireless keyboard and passively sniff, decrypt and record all of the keystrokes and send them back to the operator over the Web.

Comments

Dewhat?

[TheCarp]

This is why I hate large swaths of consumer products.

If the keyboard is encrypting keystrokes and sending them to the system....and a third party device sitting in the corner with no configuration involving dumping and loading keys....then the data is NOT encrypted.

If you use the same static key, or one of a few easily derivable keys, I don't care how solid the encryption alcogrythem you use is.... I do not consider it encrypted, because the use case took "strong encryption" and turned it into "weak obfuscation".

So unless there is some esoteric trick they are using to exploit the system and get their hands on a key that should otherwise be secure.... then its a disservice to the public to even call it encryption, because unless that is the case and they were genuinely compromised from a use case that should have otherwise been secure.... then all they did was use a fancy obfuscator.

Re:Dewhat?

[Firethorn]

So unless there is some esoteric trick they are using to exploit the system and get their hands on a key that should otherwise be secure.... then its a disservice to the public to even call it encryption, because unless that is the case and they were genuinely compromised from a use case that should have otherwise been secure.... then all they did was use a fancy obfuscator.

When I was in the USAF I had great fun telling users that they could have a wireless keyboard & mouse just as soon as they found FIPS 140-2 compliant ones. I then told them that not only do none exist to our knowledge, but none are planned. The main problem being once you put serious encryption in there(as 140-2 requires), you're looking at a keyboard/mouse that are closer to smartphones than keyboards. IE a AA won't last a few months, you'll need to charge it like you do your smartphone. AES encryption also isn't intended for 8-16 bits at a time, so it's not really efficient there.