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Security researchers at Ben-Gurion University in Israel have found a way to lift data from closed networks using little more than a standard computer monitor and FM radio waves. It's a pretty clever trick: researchers have created a keylogging app called AirHopper that can transmit radio frequencies by exploiting the PC's display. A companion app on an FM-equipped smartphone can decode those transmissions and record the host machine's keystrokes in real-time.
It's not the first time FM radio waves have been used to smuggle data out of an air gap network, but this method can be done without PC connected speakers and without either device being connected to an outside network. Like previous methods, it has a fairly short range (about 7 meters) and can't transmit more than a few bytes a second, but that's more than enough to nab passwords or other sensitive text data. The group has already released a short video of the exploit in action, and intends to publish a more detailed paper on the subject at Malcon 2014 later this week.
http://cyber.bgu.ac.il/content/how-leak-sensitive-data-isolated-computer-air-gap-near-mobile-phone-airhopper
http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/29/fm-data-leaking/
(Score: 1) by jmorris on Thursday October 30 2014, @06:41PM
The whole point of an airgap is to keep things from crossing. This method would work to get information out but only after the cybercooties first get in to infect the system to cause it to begin logging keystrokes and emitting them to a nearby smartphone. Once infected there are simply too many ways to leak information to ever plug em all. Put the CPU clock in/out of power saving modes, idle the various busses in detectable patterns, or this one of dropping patterns into the display's stream. The way to stop them all though is not letting the attacker get executable code on your secure systems in the first place. Once you have given em root trying to stop the outbound paths is whack-a-mole(tm).