Your smartwatch can be used to steal secured data- How ‘smartAttack' works
How can SmartAttack steal highly secured data from air-gapped systems?
Air-gapped systems are considered to be highly secure and are used by business and government officials to store confidential data. These systems are isolated from other systems, which makes the data protected. However, the air-gapped system can also be breached via infected USB drivers, insider threats, supply chain attacks, etc. Now, researchers from Ben Gurion University have highlighted that sensitive data from these air-gapped systems can be stolen using ultrasonic signals from smartwatches.
Mordechai Guri, head of the Offensive Cyber Research Lab at Ben-Gurion University, said, 'Our approach utilises the built-in microphones of smartwatches to capture covert signals in real time within the ultrasonic frequency range of 18–22 kHz.' This highlights the risk of carrying electronic items like smartwatches to a secure environment.
But how does it actually work? Well, it is reported that SmartAttack first looks for air-gapped systems with malware to gather crucial information such as credentials, encryption keys, and others via high-pitch ultrasonic sound, which is not audible to the human ear. Then the tiny microphone on the smartwatch can catch these sounds, and the information is then decoded using a malicious app inside the smartwatch.
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