News Cyberattack Steals PC Data Through Fan Vibrations

[ozboater]

Scrolled back to the top to see if this was written on April 1st.

Gol dang I am gobsmacked. Keep this creative thought and experimentation comming - but we need for the good guys to stay ahead of the bast...ds. Creative thought is where many break-throughs are born.

 

[rubix_1011]

The comments on 'talking around HDDs would leave imprints on them' reminds me of the few Fringe episodes where they essentially hooked up equipment to residential windows and listened to the data on them like an old phonograph.

 

[USAFRet]

The comments on 'talking around HDDs would leave imprints on them' reminds me of the few Fringe episodes where they essentially hooked up equipment to residential windows and listened to the data on them like an old phonograph.

In theory (or in TLA practice), you can do that in real time with a laser.
But 'leave imprints' to be retrieved later? No.

 

[rubix_1011]

I think as part of the show, the scenario also included the windows being slightly melted and then re-solidified, but still allowed the team to essentially rewind and re-play parts of the message as if it were being read like audio or other storage medium. Interesting concept, but you'd need to interpret the entire thing surface area and then attempt to piece everything together....no way would there be linear tracks or bits to follow.

Even if the sound waves were preserved, the likelihood of them overlapping one another is very high.

 

[bit_user]

Uh, you have access to the machine long enough to install this mission-impossible setup on not only the system but the phone as well, you could just take whatever data it is you're after there, Hoss.

This might blow your mind, but you can actually get malware onto an air-gapped PC without personally having physical access to it!

Again, has nobody read about Stuxnet? That's exactly what they did! In fact, they managed to cross two air gaps! ("they" is CIA and Mossad, in this case.)

As for hacking cell phones, governments are doing that all the time.

 

[GenericUser]

This might blow your mind, but you can actually get malware onto an air-gapped PC without personally having physical access to it!

Again, has nobody read about Stuxnet? That's exactly what they did! In fact, they managed to cross two air gaps! ("they" is CIA and Mossad, in this case.)

As for hacking cell phones, governments are doing that all the time.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but did they not still have to infect the first computer in that instance using an insider with a USB drive containing the malware? That would still constitute "physical access" even if they're using an intermediary.

I have read about that whole thing, but it's been a while. I didn't know there were two separate air gaps in that instance.

 

[watzupken]

By their own admission, this doesn't overcome the air-gap because it requires that you have contact with the computer to install malware in the first place. If they have no access to the computer in the 1st place, this doesn't work. If they do have access to the computer in the 1st place, this is totally unnecessary.

I thought so too, but perhaps to eavesdrop on someone typing in a password?

The use case for such hacks is going to be very limited from my opinion.

 

[mdd1963]

My father in law does cyber security work for the government. They aren't allowed to talk about classified information around PC's because there have been studies where the vibration form the air could leave imprints onto the hard drives! I was skeptical at first, but then he had a document he showed me about it and my jaw just dropped.

Words of this development had apparently not yet spread to the USAF's AFISRA (AF Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance Agency) as any part of policy in it's computer security education classes with regard on where conversations could/could not be had, at least as of a year ago...

 

[USAFRet]

at least as of a year ago...

at least as of a week ago...

 

[TJ Hooker]

Uh, no. That's far too low-bandwidth and much too susceptible to interference.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but did they not still have to infect the first computer in that instance using an insider with a USB drive containing the malware? That would still constitute "physical access" even if they're using an intermediary.

I have read about that whole thing, but it's been a while. I didn't know there were two separate air gaps in that instance.

The attacker(s) do not personally need to have accessed the target computer. They just need to infect some USB drive(s) that eventually make their way onto the target computer/network. If they were to try to use the same USB sticks to exfiltrate the target data, they have to count on those USB sticks making it back to a internet connected device. And they'd only get a single snapshot of data per successful attack.

By using the method described in the article (or similar methods), the malware has time to replicate across the internal network (if applicable), wait for desired data to become available, and/or provide ongoing data.

I have no idea if this is particular method will be something that state sponsored hackers would consider practical or useful, but it's an interesting idea at the very least.

 

[bit_user]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but did they not still have to infect the first computer in that instance using an insider with a USB drive containing the malware? That would still constitute "physical access" even if they're using an intermediary.

It could be an unwitting intermediary. Like, someone who finds an infected USB stick in the parking lot and decides to plug it into their PC to see what's on it.

I have read about that whole thing, but it's been a while. I didn't know there were two separate air gaps in that instance.

IIRC, the centrifuge is what they wanted to attack, but they're not networked (air gap 1). However, it had firmware that was updated by another PC that was also not network-accessible (air gap 2). So, the had to work out how to get the payload onto the the firmware updater PC, across that second air gap, and then that would be used to infect the firmware of the centrifuge.

P.S. I like your hypercube.

 

[GenericUser]

It could be an unwitting intermediary. Like, someone who finds an infected USB stick in the parking lot and decides to plug it into their PC to see what's on it.

Also a possibility. Unfortunately, that's exactly the guy they're generally referring to when talking about the "insider threat." Not the stereotypical foreign intelligence agency planted mole, but the organizations own employees not practicing basic security precautions.

IIRC, the centrifuge is what they wanted to attack, but they're not networked (air gap 1). However, it had firmware that was updated by another PC that was also not network-accessible (air gap 2). So, the had to work out how to get the payload onto the the firmware updater PC, across that second air gap, and then that would be used to infect the firmware of the centrifuge.

Interesting. I'll definitely need to read over the event again as far as what happened.

P.S. I like your hypercube.

Thanks! I'm glad you know the term for it. Or at least one of the terms. Tesseract seems to always derail the conversation towards a specific media franchise...

 

[bit_user]

Thanks! I'm glad you know the term for it. Or at least one of the terms. Tesseract seems to always derail the conversation towards a specific media franchise...

I was going to call it a tesseract, but you never know how many people are familiar with the term.

As a teenager, I had a brief obsession with hyper-dimensional geometry. I used to code up little animations of different primitives rotating in hyperspace, experimenting with different projections, etc.

Topologically speaking, here's a slick and very 90's animation explaining sphere inversion.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO61D9x6lNY​

​

 

[x1ife]

Should have used the PC speakers or better yet, sent the data over the <Mod Edit> internet.

 

[GenericUser]

I was going to call it a tesseract, but you never know how many people are familiar with the term.

As a teenager, I had a brief obsession with hyper-dimensional geometry.

Oddly enough same here believe it or not. Though I definitely wasn't going to the extent of creating my own animations (though I didn't have the skill to do that if I wanted). I did find a 4D maze game though that was pretty awesome, and once you were able to wrap your head around what you were exactly looking at and how to interpret everything, it was pretty cool to see what it was like to move around in a 4th spatial dimension.

That video link was pretty neat, introduced some things related to the concept I hadn't thought of before. The narrators also sounded like they could have done the voice work for menu options on the phone after calling a large organization, which gave it kind of an entertaining vibe having that thought in the back of my mind.