Traditional Keyboard Sounds Can be Decoded By Listening Over a VoIP Connection, Researchers Say (onthewire.io)

Reader Trailrunner7 writes: Researchers have known for a long time that acoustic signals from keyboards can be intercepted and used to spy on users, but those attacks rely on grabbing the electronic emanation from the keyboard. New research from the University of California Irvine shows that an attacker, who has not compromised a target's PC, can record the acoustic emanations of a victim's keystrokes and later reconstruct the text of what he typed, simply by listening over a VoIP connection.

The researchers found that when connected to a target user on a Skype call, they could record the audio of the user's keystrokes. With a small amount of knowledge about the victim's typing style and the keyboard he's using, the researchers could accurately get 91.7 percent of keystrokes. The attack does not require any malware on the victim's machine and simply takes advantage of the way that VoIP software acquires acoustic emanations from the machine it's on.

Comments

New research perhaps, but not new results

[suso]

While their specific research may be new, the results are hardly new. Its been nearly 11 years since more original research was released with similar results. Looks like this may be the first time Slashdot has reported this though.

Re:New research perhaps, but not new results

[CaptainLard]

What is new however, is that 25% of my keyboard interactions now involve autocomplete popping up and me selecting something with a mouse. Better hurry up and exploit this while you can...

here's a workaround then

[KiloByte]

apt-get install bucklespring (there's a Mac build, dunno how do you install there -- or if you even still can install anything not from the App Store)

The author of this program has sampled the sound of every key on a real Model M, so you can install this and pretend you have a keyboard for grown-ups. On the downside, everyone in your building can learn what you type without requiring a VoIP link.