Security Tales: Laser Hacking
Vladimir Bezmaly | 11/30/2020
For the third day, Johann's research unit had been trying to solve a difficult problem. They needed to understand how someone could make purchases using the card of an employee of the Intellectual Crimes Department. Unfortunately, he hadn't lost the card, the bank had blocked it, but the attacker still gained access to the account and made payments.
All of the employee's devices were checked and suspicion fell on the home voice assistant.
- Looks like a laser hack of our employee's digital home assistant.
— Have you tested this hypothesis?
— Yes, we were able to issue silent cayman islands whatsapp data by shining lasers — from over 100 meters away — at the microphones of various popular voice assistants. It turns out that by modulating the electrical signal with the intensity of the light beam, attackers can trick the microphones into producing electrical signals as if they were receiving real sound. But we don’t yet understand why this happens!
— Wait, but you could use light to control a wider range of digital assistants, as well as sensor systems used in medical devices, autonomous vehicles, industrial systems, and even space systems.
— Yes. Moreover, we managed to use the digital assistant as a gateway and gain control over other devices connected to it in the house. It turns out that in this way it is possible to attack the entire “smart” house, including smart door locks, garage doors, computers and even cars.
- And what can we do to counter this?
- Only reducing the amount of light entering the microphones by using a barrier or diffracting film to physically block the direct light rays, allowing the sound waves to bypass the obstruction. This will help soften the attack.