If you think that a computer that is not connected to a network, does not have any USB sticks connected to it, and does not accept any kind of electronic connection request, is quite safe from hackers and all malicious programs, then you are wrong.
We inform you that German scientists have developed a theory that says that some malware could allow a hacker to infect your computers and other digital devices using only audio signals.
Just imagine, a cyber attack using high-frequency sound waves to infect machines, but also stolen data that can also be transferred back to the attacker without a network connection. Sounds too scary?
When a few weeks ago, security researcher Dragos Ruiu claimed that a malware called badBIOS allowed infected machines to communicate using sound waves while the devices were physically disconnected from any network, including the internet, people said he was crazy.
But now German researchers have published a paper on how malware can be designed to travel through the air by transmitting information through the speakers and recording through the microphone.
Instead of relying on TCP-IP, they used a network stack originally developed for underwater communication, where the signal is propagated through the use of a software modem.
In a possible hacking scenario, "The infected victim sends everything typed on the keyboard to a covert mesh of an audio network. Other infected computers relay the information inside the covert network until it is received by the attacker, who is now able to read what the infected victim typed from a remote location," the researchers explained.
In another project, researchers used sound waves to send information to a computer connected to a computer network, which then sent the information to the attacker via e-mail.
POC Malware researchers are able to transfer data at 20 bits per second, a speed that is particularly slow, but capable of transferring your password or credit card number to the hacker within seconds.
It looks like a science fiction movie and maybe some people think that we are sitting and talking about something that can be done in 10 years. However, we remind you that computer technology is growing rapidly and perhaps inexorably. What may seem incredible today may already be in operation somewhere in the world in a month. Remember what you said when we suggested to you 1 year ago to cover your camera because there is a virus that can activate it and send your images to hackers.
However, some basic countermeasures that one can take to protect themselves from this type of malware are:
- Disable audio input and output devices from the system.
- Sound filtering that blocks high frequency ranges or frequencies outside the audio spectrum.
- Using a sound monitor.
Let's see how antivirus companies will handle these threats to protect home users in the near future.
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