Beware, Music At Starbucks Can Be Malware


"We showed that these sensory channels can be used to send short messages that may eventually be used to trigger a mass-signal attack," said Nitesh Saxena, director of the UAB Security and Privacy in Emerging computing and networking Systems (SPIES) research group and assistant professor in the Center for Information Assurance and Joint Forensics Research (CIA-JFR).

"While traditional networking communication used to send such triggers can be detected relatively easily, there does not seem to be a good way to detect such covert channels currently," Saxena said.

Researchers were able to trigger malware with a bandwidth of only five bits per second - a fraction of the bandwidth used by laptops or home computers.

"This kind of attack is sophisticated and difficult to build, but it will become increasingly easier to accomplish in the future as technology improves," said Shams Zawoad, a doctoral student and graduate assistant in the SECRET computing lab.

"We need to create defenses before these attacks become widespread, so it is better that we find out these techniques first and stay one step ahead," Zawoad said.

Source: PTI