Malware Uses Router LEDs To Steal Data From Secure Networks (bleepingcomputer.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Researchers from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel have developed malware that when installed on a router or a switch can take control over the device's LEDs and use them to transmit data in a binary format to a nearby attacker, who can capture it using simple video recording equipment. The attack is similar to the LED-it-GO attack developed by the same team, which uses a hard drive's blinking LED to steal data from air-gapped computers. Because routers and switches have many more LEDs than a hard drive, this attack scenario is much more efficient, as it can transmit data at about the same speed, but multiplied by the number of ports/LEDs. Researchers say they were able to steal data by 1000 bits/ per LED, making this the most efficient attack known to date. The attack worked best when coupled with optical sensors, which are capable of sampling LED signals at high rates, enabling data reception at a higher bandwidth than other typical video recording equipment. A video of the attack is available here.

Comments

security of routers

[Anonymous Coward]

If your routers are insecure enough that someone can sneak in, reprogram them to flash their LEDs and install sensors to pick up the flashing LEDs you have bigger issues.

Re:security of routers

[hawguy]

If your routers are insecure enough that someone can sneak in, reprogram them to flash their LEDs and install sensors to pick up the flashing LEDs you have bigger issues.

Lots of companies colocate in "secure" datacenters where their equipment cages are walled off by nothing more than chain link fences with equipment stacked in bare racks, plainly visible to anyone walking by.

If you can find a software vulnerability and hack into one of their switches/routers, you can use this technique to extract data from their network without tripping any IDS sensors -- all you need to do is rent a neighboring cage and point a camera at the switches.

The company across the courtyard from us has a bit stack of network switches facing the window. Same problem - get someone to infect their network from within (through, say, a compromised USB key) and you can send data all day long over the lights without anyone noticing any unusual outbound traffic.

Almost old school

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

This looks like a contemporary attempt to revive a classic.

Back in the Before Times; you could get serial modems that did DES(maybe 3DES? my memory grows fuzzy) in hardware, to allow systems without built in line security measures to be run over phone lines(ATMs, that sort of thing). It was cleartext on the RS-232 link between the device and the modem; but that was supposed to be physically secured inside the chassis; then encrypted between the modems on each end of the line; and decrypted at the far end, presumably in a secure location.

Some designs, whether out of lack of imagination, incompetence, or sneaky malice, had LEDs that were more or less directly tied to the cleartext serial input; and the LEDs and drive circuitry were quite capable of blinking at the rates of at least the slower serial links; so you could read the unencrypted serial traffic right off the fancy 'secure' modem's blinkenlights(at a fair distance, with magnification).

This study tested ethernet gear as well; but found that(if unmodified) it was of relatively limited use: data rates were far too high for LEDs to be driven directly by high/low values in the data stream; and instead blinked in ways only indirectly associated with traffic activity, mostly for diagnostic convenience.

This new one requires that the system be maliciously modified, so it lacks the charm of the original; but takes advantage of the fact that indicator LEDs can still blink pretty fast(and some are GPIO controlled) so they can still be shoved into transmitting information; but now you have to handle that yourself, rather than having the vendor do it for you.

Deja vu

[ShaunC]

LED Lights: Friend or Foe? was posted here more than 15 years ago. Everything old is new again (except me, I guess).