Israeli security researchers at Ben Gurion University have found a way to turn standard headphones into microphones and then use them to record sounds in the room just like a well-equipped spy device.
Using headphones as microphones is nothing new – it's been done before, but what the researchers have really accomplished is not only that, but using the audio output channel as an input and then recording the audio.
Specifically, using a malware called Speak(a)r, security researchers turned headphones into microphones by converting vibrations in the air emitted by sound (like your voice) into electromagnetic signals. This makes it possible for the headphones to act as a regular microphone that can detect almost any sound from across the room.
The next step was to trick the audio chip's output channel into becoming an input channel, thus allowing audio recording. According to Wired, this was possible thanks to a feature available in the Realtek chip, making it possible for the malware to record audio.
Realtek chips are used by the majority of Windows and Mac systems, and security researchers claim that this leaves most computers vulnerable to such attacks.
"This is the real vulnerability," says Mordechai Guri, a security researcher. "It's what makes almost every computer vulnerable to this type of attack.".
Security researchers say there's not much we can do, since their studies have shown that audio can be recorded from 20 feet away.
Since the vulnerability exists in the Realtek chip, no software has been able to fix it, and the only way to deal with it is to upgrade the hardware proactively for the future. But for the majority of systems out there today, there's not much you can do, other than unplug the headphones every time you stop using them.
