When sitting in your office, you would consider your conversations to be private. Whether you’re on a video call or speaking with someone in person.
Most of us would be confident that the walls would stop any potential eavesdroppers.
Well…that may not be the case 😳
Researchers have found a way that cyber criminals could potentially listen to your conversations. Alarmingly, it doesn’t require hacking of your devices or planting spyware. Instead, they were able to exploit a built-in flaw common in many laptop microphones.
Many laptops out there today use MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) microphones. These are tiny, low powered microphones used in a wide variety of devices.
It was found that many of these microphones used in laptops are connected with long, unshielded wires inside. These wires can act like little antennas which give off weak radio signals.
Researchers were able to use these radio signals to rebuild speech through a 25cm thick concrete wall with 94% accuracy, by using a FM radio receiver, a bit of copper wire and some AI tools 🙉
That means for a couple of hundred dollars, someone could sit on the other side of a wall and use your microphone to overhear your conversations.
Luckily this isn’t a common exploit, as it’s something only recently uncovered through cutting edge research.
And because of this, it’s likely future laptops can be built with better shielding and better microphone placement to prevent such a scenario.
But, for existing devices it’s something you can’t really fix yourself. And since it’s not a traditional hack, antivirus software won’t help either.
So, for now:
👂 Be conscious of discussing sensitive information around your devices
👂 Consider improved hardware designs when looking to upgrade your devices
👂 Keep in mind, that a ‘private’ conversation may not be as private as you think
Technology has certainly brought about some amazing benefits, but we also need to be aware of some of the risks it can introduce.
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