Oct 22 2008

Sniffing Wired Keyboards

Category: SecurityTeknovis @ 22:50

Researchers in the Security and Cryptography Laboratory (LASEC) in the Swiss University Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have developed four side channel attacks that are capable of detecting keystrokes remotely. Their attacks are based on measuring electromagnetic radiation, and they successfully attacked 11 different wired keyboards over distances up to 20 meters. The initial details of their research are available online (including two video demonstrations), and further details are contained in a paper that is currently under peer review. I am sure it will be an interesting read!

These types of side channel attacks are always very interesting, because they can often totally circumvent traditional cryptographic techniques such as application level encryption and decryption.

I wonder are there other interesting applications for these attacks. For example, the researchers mention the possible application of their research to the keyboards used in automatic teller machines.

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