Breaching Air-Gap Security With Radio 80
An anonymous reader writes: Security researcher Mordechai Guri with the guidance of Prof. Yuval Elovici from the cyber security labs at Ben-Gurion University in Israel presented at MALCON 2014 a breakthrough method ("AirHopper") for leaking data from an isolated computer to a mobile phone without the presence of a network. In highly secure facilities the assumption today is that data can not leak outside of an isolated internal network. It is called air-gap security. AirHopper demonstrates how the computer display can be used for sending data from the air-gapped computer to a near by smartphone. The published paper and a demonstration video are at the link.
Meh (Score:2, Insightful)
I would be impressed if it didn't require a malicious payload on the target computer.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)
You should consider hiding your beer somewhere safe.
Way ahead of you. BURP.
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You should consider hiding your beer somewhere safe.
Way ahead of you. BURP.
You could always give it to him after you're done renting it.
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Sure, but that's the physical world. Just because you broke into one refrigerator, doesn't mean you can suddenly drink the beer from all the other refrigerators on the planet.
Do you see the difference between the physical world and the information world?
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Do you see the difference between the physical world and the information world?
No, I don't see the difference. Please explain.
OK, since this is slashdot, the terms of service require someone to explain it to you using a car analogy.
The physical world is like a car. Let's say you're thirsty. You get in the car, you turn the key, you engage the transmission, you depress the throttle and use the wheel to steer yourself around. You navigate the roads, avoiding obstacles and making appropriate turns. When you arrive at the bar, you hit the brakes, disengage the transmission, turn off the key, exit the car, go in the bar, buy a beer
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OK, we need all scientists working on this immediately.
Some form of generalized quantum entanglement so that I can have a fridge with unlimited beer.
Unless it's Budweiser, in which case you can keep it. Unless there's no other beer, in which case it'll do. ;-)
If we can extend this principle so I can have an infinite supply of pizza, t
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In my information world, I still don't care about your beer, only mine.
All your beer are belong to us!
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Thats why all the spy rocks keep on getting found.
How many where more than just dead-letter drops?
Russian 'spy rock' was genuine, former chief of staff admits (19 Jan 2012)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... [telegraph.co.uk]
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Not mine - whenever I have to access a hard drive, I put it in the microwave (don't worry, I cut a hole in the door for the esata cable) and turn it on while the drive is reading or writing data. The background noise from the microwave obscures the relatively quiet noises made by the drive, and the magnetic field generated by the microwave's magnetron creates a magnetic bubble, or "shield" around the drive, ensuring that remote radiomagnetical analysis cannot penetrate the interior of the microwave and thus
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I would be impressed if it didn't require a malicious payload on the target computer.
Because it's so hard to get a malicious payload onto a computer? Especially one that you have physical access to?
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Been doing it for years (Score:5, Insightful)
The correct term for this air-gap horseshit is called a Tempest Attack, and we've been doing it for years... 20 years? 30 YEARS???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org]
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Also, this [wikipedia.org].
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The correct term for this air-gap horseshit is called a Tempest Attack, and we've been doing it for years... 20 years? 30 YEARS???
No, it isn't. This is something completely different. (Not to mention that Tempest never didn't very well unless you had a boatload of expensive equipment. Amateur rigs sometimes worked, even through a wall... but no more than a couple of feet away.)
This "air-gap" communication is INTENTIONAL transmission and reception of data. With Tempest, the transmission is unintentional.
Regardless, before this particular demonstration it was done before at least once with sound.
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Not that hard to defeat (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not that hard to defeat (Score:4, Interesting)
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I don't get it. Lead is a metal. If you encase everything in lead, what do you need other metal for?
Lead has poor electrical conductivity, so isn't great for a faraday cage.
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Re:Not that hard to defeat (Score:4, Insightful)
That would work.
And I think that the summary kind of misses the point of what "air-gapped" means. It does NOT mean that your system is invulnerable. No system is invulnerable.
It DOES mean that it can ONLY be attacked by someone with physical access to it. Or someone with control of the hardware manufacturing / transportation channels prior to the computer being installed in the secure location. So you're removing potential channels of attack AND reducing the number of potential attackers.
Now you need metal detectors at the entrances. And "no lone zones" where EVERYONE is accompanied by someone else. Depending upon the level of security that you want.
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Unless you're going to do cavity searches of everyone that goes into a secured area, you're much better off improving the shielding for air-gapped computers.
In this whitepaper, they infect the air gapped computer with malware and then use the monitor cable as a transmitting antenna.
Interestingly, they propose infecting workers' phones with malware, making this a potential external threat, as opposed to an insider one.
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The whole problem with the concept is that in most (every one I've been in the last 20+ years in 4 different countries) secured facilities cell phones or any two way communication device, including 2 way pagers, weren't allowed. Many have electronics detectors mounted on the walls that detect RF emitters in the are. I've personally seen people's cell phones destroyed after forgetting to remove them from pockets.
The whole thing has been around for over 40 years and been dealt with appropriately throughout
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yes like having the cell phone storage at a security desk where they make sure the phones go in with no headsets.
Tempest (Score:5, Informative)
This is nothing new. They've been doing this for decades with Tempest.
Re:Tempest (Score:5, Insightful)
[11] W. van Eck, "Electromagnetic Radiation from Video Display Units: An Eavesdropping Risk?," Computers and Security 4, pp. 269-286, 1985.
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Ahh, you beat me to the post by an hour at least. Which probably means you van-ecked my /. login info and posted this very comment ;)
Re:Tempest (Score:5, Informative)
The 'news' is that they also offer techniques to turn off the screen to avoid detection, they developed a (for this purpose working) data transmission method, offer a variety of signal hiding techniques and use it to exfiltrate not images of the CRT or LCD screen itself but modulate binary or textual data with the VGA cable serving as radio antenna while the screen is turned off. Also where before it would probably take somebody a lot of time and devotion to develop hardware for a receiver, the paper on top explains how to turn a cheap Android based phone into one. They also did a working proof of concept. I guess none of it all is in itself 'news'. But the combination of different techniques is an interesting use-case.
Really? (Score:2)
A smart phone 20 years ago.
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I like the idea that you need a smartphone to get information out of a air-gapped computer when you can access the screen.
What do they think lthe screen is for?
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First option is out. Not only do the USB ports get disabled on such machines, but you can't take a USB stick anywhere near them, any more than you could a phone.
Second option suffers the same "can't get a phone within 10 meters of the machine" that the parent mentioned.
Third, if you can pay a person with security clearance to do this then it isn't a computer problem.
Fourth, people who do this work are not as rigorously checked as their workers/software people, but you will note that all the secure places I
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...and certainly cannot be done with a USB stick anywhere on your person.
I'm not sure you have seen the smallest USB drives out there. Some are about the size and thickness of the SIM card in your phone. Imagine something near the thickness of a business card and about the same dimensions as the silver end of a USB cable.
I can think of several places to hide this that won't be searched: Inside a belt, inside a wallet, behind your belt buckle, under your watch, against the inside of wide glasses, behind your ear with long hair, under a bra strap, hollowed-out coin, inside a
Van Eck phreaking (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Van Eck phreaking (Score:4, Insightful)
Was coming to say that.
Though, I suspect most of us only know about it due to reading the Cryptonomicon.
But, really, this gives stronger evidence for wearing tinfoil hats and living in a Faraday cage.
I'm also putting the finishing touches on my tinfoil codpiece ... maybe if it can't hear me it won't make me do stupid things. ;-)
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That's how I first heard of it. I thought Stephenson pulled it out of his ass until I did some research.
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That was definitely my first reaction when I read the book ... then I found out it was real and that kind of blew my mind.
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funny how "young" readers have that reaction to many things in that book. Those of us born in early 60s just laugh at the all old tricks that still work
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This isn't new. Wim Van Eck [wikipedia.org] did it back in 1985
And the spy agencies well before that. I had a high school computer teacher who worked after school at a computer store that just happened to be down the street from a sigint Army base and they had the Compaq franchise for the area - he probably told us way more about the special Tempest-hardened models he had been selling them, in 1987, than he was supposed to. He couldn't help it - the tech was way cool and he was a card-carrying nerd (RIP).
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I was there in the early 80's. Computer security officer was one of my additional duties at that time. Tempest was a pain in the ass but it was not a secret. There were signs that had to be posted, training that everyone had to have, inspections that had to be done. Power cables had to be separated from data cables and other cables had to only cross at right angles. Lots and lots of paranoia.
New meaning to older expression... (Score:3)
... tempest in a teapot ...
highly secure facilities (Score:1)
If smartphones are allowed, it's not a high-security facility.
Bringing a smartphone in the secure area should earn you a one-way trip to prison.
I've developed my own... (Score:1)
I've developed my own breakthrough method for leaking data from an isolated computer to a mobile phone without the presence of a network.
It's called "Take a photo of the screen."
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If you want to test your mental strength in what may be earnestly exploring or a decent into madness, try the #badBIOStalk:
Never trust a computer you haven't built for yourself from SSI and MSI chips! ;-)
Yawn (Score:3)
Time for fiber optical connections (Score:2)
Should fix this problem - unless the super-cheaply designed mainborard and graphica card emit the signal via the ground plane/power line
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I was referrring to the routing of the power traces/ground planes on the PCB and saving additional EMI filters on the circuit boards. Isolating at the wall would also not help.
Wireless data transfer via the screen? SO 90s! (Score:1)
I was doing this with my Beepwear Datalink watch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Datalink#Wireless_data_transfer_mode) back in the day... the watch had an optical sensor built into it and you ran software on your PC that made the display go wonky with something like barcodes flying off the screen. You started the software, pointed the watch at the screen, and zingo, it sent your contacts, appointments and whatnot to the watch.
good god this is old technique (Score:3)
done deal in the 1980s and subject of a few major computer magazine at the time.
live long enough and see the same "new" thing being discovered over and over, about once a decade.
what's next, article about a "picture phone"?
This just in... (Score:3)
That same smartphone can be used to listen to "Duran, Duran", "Talk, Talk", "Oingo Boingo", and "Wang Chung"
Relive the 80s and everyone have fun tonight.
PDF (Score:1)
AirHopper: Bridging the Air-Gap between Isolated Networks and Mobile Phones using Radio frequencies - https://cdn.anonfiles.com/1414... [anonfiles.com]
But now theres an app for that ...
Elephants. Rooms. (Score:2)
I think the big elephant in the room is more to be found further upstream, in the area of manufacturing. Worrying about software hacks is one thing - not having the faintest absolute clue exactly *what* is inside the chip package is something else entirely. Think its an accumulator bank? Oh sorry, maybe we forgot to mention the harmonic bundles associated with wave guidance within the interstitial distances of the rapidly blinking transistors .. yeah, those can be read from space. With a satellite (or 1
Misdirection (Score:2)
The real issue would be where a malicious employee adds the keylogging code
to a PC used by an IT staff member, which would then allow anyone using their app
to read anything typed in, including the superuser password.
Once you have that, you can do pretty well anything.
what to do now... (Score:1)