Researchers from Tel Aviv University recently found a way to decipher decryption keys by decoding the radiowaves emitted by laptop computers. The device the team created is compact enough to fit inside a round of pita bread, although not as stealthy as some would hope. (via TAU)
Hackers of the future may use pita bread to compromise your network, according to a new study that is. Researchers from Tel Aviv University created a portable radio receiver that can extract protected decryption keys from nearby laptops using radio frequency monitoring. The device is compact enough to fit inside of a pocket of pita bread, making the next generation of hackers a new breed entirely.
The new study, titled “Stealing Keys from PCs using a Radio: Cheap Electromagnetic Attacks on Windowed Exponentiation,” explored the radio frequency emitted by every wireless laptop computer. Tel Aviv researchers discovered that this emission can be monitored, recorded and used to decipher the decryption keys of computers within a range of 50 cm. The process is surprisingly simple and only requires common hardware.
Example of radiowave emission monitoring (image: Tel Aviv)
The study researchers discovered that laptop computers give a radio output when processing data, and that output changes based on the keys it is processing. Thus, using a simple encryption software, such as GnuPG, enabled the research team to decode nearby computers within a few seconds.
The device is capable of three types of attacks: Software Defined Radio attack, which targets RSA and ElGamal keys; Untethered SDR attack, which uses WiFi to target nearby users more stealthily; and consumer radio attack, which captures radio output using a smartphone. The most interesting of the three is the Untethered SDR attack, which uses the team’s Portable Instrument for Trace Acquisition (PITA) and fits inside of – you guessed it – a round of pita bread.
PITA (image: Tel Aviv)
The food-infused hacking device can detect whether a computer is at rest or in use and can also distinguish between different programs being run. Researchers were also able to use PITA to determine various RSA keys and also to fully decode decryption keys of various ciphertexts by monitoring radio output during use.
The research team will present the results of the study at the Workshop on Crytographic Hardware and Embedded Systems 2015 in September. It is unlikely any hackers would walk around with food-stuffed devices, ready to steal your identity, yet, but the study does raise new questions about network security issues across various electromagnetic frequencies.
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