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OK, so you've air-gapped that PC. Cut the speakers. Covered the LEDs. Disconnected the monitor. Now, about the data-leaking power supply unit...
Video Israeli cyber-security side-channel expert Mordechai Guri has devised a way to pilfer data from devices that have been air-gapped and silenced.
[...] An obvious defense against acoustic data transmission is to disable any speakers on the protected device, a practice known as audio-gapping.
But Guri's latest research shows that's not enough. He and his team have found a way to turn the power supply in an isolated, muted machine into a speaker of sorts, one capable of transmitting data at a rate of 50 bits/sec.
He calls the attack POWER-SUPPLaY. The technique has the potential to be used against PC workstations and servers, as well as embedded systems and IoT devices that have no addressable audio hardware.
"We show that malware running on a PC can exploit its power supply unit (PSU) and use it as an out-of-band speaker with limited capabilities," a paper [PDF] detailing the technique explained. "The malicious code intentionally manipulates the internal switching frequency of the power supply and hence controls the waveform generated from its capacitors and transformers."
[...] Guri and others have developed a handful of similar TEMPEST attack schemes, such as luminance signaling via LCD screen fluctuations (BRIGHTNESS), acoustic signaling using fan modulation (FANSMITTER), data exfiltration via power cables (POWERHAMMER), and covert signaling via keyboard lights (CTRL-ALT-LED).
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 06 2020, @01:36AM (2 children)
My own thoughts are, if someone is looking closely enough at you to exploit something like this, you are probably pwned anyway. The antagonists are already so close to you that they can monitor very limited tell-tales such as the brightness of your screen, signals from the PSU, and all the rest mentioned above? Well, if they are that close, the first time you go out to buy Cheetos, they're going to break in to your home/office and gain physical access to your machine, along with your network. Upon your return home from the Cheetos run, your screen is going to be mirrored at NSA headquarters anyway.
A bit of paranoia is good, maybe more paranoia is better, but it can be overdone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2020, @01:52AM
Just not "close" enough to use other methods to get the desired data out. Where the desired data is of quantities that can be practically transferred at 50 bits/sec[1].
[1] It takes 5 years to transfer 1GB at 50 bits/sec.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday May 07 2020, @03:41PM
Interesting. Sort of a wrench solution [xkcd.com]. Moderated that if it is indeed nation-state intelligence agency internal level security then it may be the only exploit possible, not unlike when the laser microphone [wikipedia.org] technique was developed.
This sig for rent.