Can Electromagnetic Leaks in Your Laptop Pose a Security Threat? Yes it Can!
Contrary to popular belief, the electromagnetic radiation that is emitted from laptops for college cannot be compared to a nuclear reactor that’s leaking out mega doses of hazardous radiation. In fact, the radiation emitted by your laptop is quite similar in quantity and frequency than that which is emitted by another human being. But, before you shout halleluiah, radiation is after all radiation and so, it is harmful in some context. And in case, you were wondering what that was, researchers have now discovered that hackers can use electronic signals which laptops emit to steal information.
For instance, while those who use their laptops in public areas and feel pretty smug that they are safe because the wifi is off, the truth is that the bad guys could easily eavesdrop on what you’re doing by simply analyzing the electronic signals that your laptop emits.
Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology are currently investigating where these leaks may occur to help security analysts develop new strategies to plug them. The team of researchers have, so far, come up with a metric which can be used to measure the strength of these leaks which is known as “side channel signal.”
According to Alenka Zajic who is a professor at Georgia Tech, while most people are focused on security over the internet, their research is focused on threats through wireless communication, and more specifically the hacks which can be done without the computer actually sending out anything, and with the internet disabled.
New spying methods can be used to monitor these side channel emissions, which can be measured from a couple of feet away from a laptop. Fake battery chargers could be used to give information on power fluctuations, while hidden microphones can pick up the sounds that are produced by electronic components in a laptop, such as capacitors.
According to the data that has been gathered so far, some signals can also be picked up by something as simple as an FM radio, which only goes to show how dangerous these leaks actually are. To prove that the leaks are a serious threat, Zajic typed in a password on a laptop that wasn’t connected to the internet and a colleague who was using a laptop which was disconnected from the internet from the other side of a wall read the password while it was being typed by simply intercepting these side channel signals that were produced by the first laptop’s software.
While this type of side-channel attack is hardly ever heard of, Zajic and his team of researchers at Georgia Tech are certain that it won’t be before long that these attacks make their way to the mainstream, which is why the researchers are working towards determining where these leaks originate from within a laptop.
And while there is no way of completely eliminating the side channel signals in laptops for college or otherwise, the researchers at Georgia Tech are trying out ways to make those signals weaker so that hackers would need to use larger antennas and consume much more time, which will consequently help in identifying potential attackers.
For More Information: http://www.technogigs.com/