A research team from the Georgia Institute of Technology claims to have discovered a keyboard keylogger attack that is performed using an iPhone’s accelerometer. However, the situation has to be so precise — and is so unlikely — that if you’re a victim of this attack you really are one of the unluckiest people on the planet.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t fair to call them “paranoid researchers,” but this is how these guys claim your information can be obtained: Firstly, attackers must install a keylogger on your iPhone so that they can record the vibrations picked up by your iPhone’s accelerometer. Then, your iPhone must be placed “within a few inches” of your computer’s keyboard, so that the iPhone can detect the vibrations made when you type away on your computer’s keyboard — not your iPhone’s keyboard.
Patrick Traynor, assistant professor at the Georgia Tech’s School of Computer Science, says:
“Every time you touch a key you create a physical vibration and it’s recorded by the accelerometer in the phone.”
What baffles me is how your iPhone translates those vibrations into letters. I mean, as far as I can tell, my keyboard makes the same vibration when I press the letter B than it does when I press the letter S, so how does the iPhone tell the difference?
In order to protect yourself from this attack, Traynor says, you can move your iPhone at least half a foot away from your keyboard. Or you could try not to make vibrations while you work.
While the likelihood of this attack is incredibly remote, Traynor says, “We just want people to take a realistic look at this.”
Will you be moving your iPhone away from your computer’s keyboard in future?
[via Macworld]
Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.
29 responses to “Warning: Paranoid Researchers Discover Highly Unlikely Keylogger Attack Using iPhone Accelerometer”
No I will not be moving it, fucking tinfoil hat scientists.
Wow, that is awesome. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA comes out the same as You are a moron to everyone recording my keystrokes by using a keylogger installed on my iPhone. Seriously, what a load.
This sounds like a spook trick if it works at all. You just need the sexy young spy to place the key logger on the iPhone, and a “target” that habitually leaves the phone on the same desk as the keyboard (which is actually pretty likely behaviour).
I am laughing my ass off here! Is this for real?
This is almost as good as the “cover the screen or the US government can read your emails and see your password from satellites above you”.
This can’t be for real.
I would be shocked if the vibrations from me hitting a t is different than a y. However, hitting the key will enject seismo-acoustic energy into the table. Using the triaxial accelerometer at a high sample rate, you could 1) find the distance of the keytap to the iphone sensor, and you can infer the distance. This is basically how seismologists locate earthquakes.
But, I would be shocked if they can make it work in any real world situation.
Will you be moving your iPhone away from your computer’s keyboard in future? Erm, nope. I have sex with my iPhone by my bedside. Them hackers can interpret those vibrations any way they want.
Could it be an attack based on timing keystrokes? There has been a study where SSH was attacked by analysing keystroke timings captured from network interface: http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~dawnso…
I think this is a halloween trick
Did you know….. If someone stands next to you as you type in your code… There is a chance they can see it and they can hack your iPhone!!! We need side blinkers to be made mandatory for everyone who goes outside into public areas! This is so shocking!!! Be careful everyone!!!!
“My keyboard makes the same vibration when I press the letter B than it does when I press the letter S” — Appropriate letter selection. :P
Couldn’t put it any better.
I read about a guy who recorded sound from printers in clinics and could recreate what was printed, in that case which medicines the patients got. But that was a little more serious than this one.
Pffff…
wouldn’t it be easier to just place the iPhone strategically to secretly record a video of the person typing the keyboard?
hmmm….they probably couldn’t get enough data in 25 seconds
AWESOME! This could work AND could be useful.
The 3 (or 4?) accelerometers on the phone are in different places, and could pick up the approximate location of a vibration by triangulating it. The same way we detect earth tremors, folks. Easy to do with the right equipment, not sure if the iPhone accelerometers are sensitive enough however.If they were, the theoretical program could listen for the vibrations that sound like typing and roughly figure out how far away the keyboard is, and how it is rotated. Once it knows that, depending on its sensitivity, AND if it assumes a standard English QWERTY layout, it could pretty much guess what key was pressed when it hears the vibration.Hey presto, a key-logger!In a practical way, you could theoretically load up the key-logger whenever you want to use ANY physical keyboard lying around the place with your iOS device. All you would need to do is put down your iPhone/iPad/whatever next to the keyboard and type away. The characters magically appear on your iOS screen! No wires or bluetooth or setup needed.I think that’s pretty cool. It could also work well with those fancy prototype projected-on-a-surface keyboards we’ve seen demoed — without the need for a camera looking down on your fingers (the cameras view may be blocked due to fingers getting in the way, etc., slowing the typing rate down).