POWER-SUPPLaY: Leaking Data from Air-Gapped Systems by Turning the Power-Supplies Into Speakers

It is known that attackers can exfiltrate data from air-gapped computers through their speakers via sonic and ultrasonic waves. To eliminate the threat of such acoustic covert channels in sensitive systems, audio hardware can be disabled and the use of loudspeakers can be strictly forbidden. Such audio-less systems are considered to be \textit{audio-gapped}, and hence immune to acoustic covert channels. In this paper, we introduce a technique that enable attackers leak data acoustically from air-gapped and audio-gapped systems. Our developed malware can exploit the computer power supply unit (PSU) to play sounds and use it as an out-of-band, secondary speaker with limited capabilities. The malicious code manipulates the internal \textit{switching frequency} of the power supply and hence controls the sound waveforms generated from its capacitors and transformers. Our technique enables producing audio tones in a frequency band of 0-24khz and playing audio streams (e.g., WAV) from a computer power supply without the need for audio hardware or speakers. Binary data (files, keylogging, encryption keys, etc.) can be modulated over the acoustic signals and sent to a nearby receiver (e.g., smartphone). We show that our technique works with various types of systems: PC workstations and servers, as well as embedded systems and IoT devices that have no audio hardware at all. We provide technical background and discuss implementation details such as signal generation and data modulation. We show that the POWER-SUPPLaY code can operate from an ordinary user-mode process and doesn't need any hardware access or special privileges. Our evaluation shows that using POWER-SUPPLaY, sensitive data can be exfiltrated from air-gapped and audio-gapped systems from a distance of five meters away at a maximal bit rates of 50 bit/sec

DolphinAtack: Inaudible Voice Commands

Speech recognition (SR) systems such as Siri or Google Now have become an increasingly popular human-computer interaction method, and have turned various systems into voice controllable systems(VCS). Prior work on attacking VCS shows that the hidden voice commands that are incomprehensible to people can control the systems. Hidden voice commands, though hidden, are nonetheless audible. In this work, we design a completely inaudible attack, DolphinAttack, that modulates voice commands on ultrasonic carriers (e.g., f > 20 kHz) to achieve inaudibility. By leveraging the nonlinearity of the microphone circuits, the modulated low frequency audio commands can be successfully demodulated, recovered, and more importantly interpreted by the speech recognition systems. We validate DolphinAttack on popular speech recognition systems, including Siri, Google Now, Samsung S Voice, Huawei HiVoice, Cortana and Alexa. By injecting a sequence of inaudible voice commands, we show a few proof-of-concept attacks, which include activating Siri to initiate a FaceTime call on iPhone, activating Google Now to switch the phone to the airplane mode, and even manipulating the navigation system in an Audi automobile. We propose hardware and software defense solutions. We validate that it is feasible to detect DolphinAttack by classifying the audios using supported vector machine (SVM), and suggest to re-design voice controllable systems to be resilient to inaudible voice command attacks.Comment: 15 pages, 17 figure

Security and Privacy for Ubiquitous Mobile Devices

We live in a world where mobile devices are already ubiquitous. It is estimated that in the United States approximately two thirds of adults own a smartphone, and that for many, these devices are their primary method of accessing the Internet. World wide, it is estimated that in May of 2014 there were 6.9 billion mobile cellular subscriptions, almost as much as the world population. of these 6.9 billion, approximately 1 billion are smart devices, which are concentrated in the developed world. In the developing world, users are moving from feature phones to smart devices as a result of lower prices and marketing efforts. Because smart mobile devices are ubiquitous, security and privacy are primary concerns. Threats such as mobile malware are already substantial, with over 2500 different types identified in 2010 alone. It is likely that, as the smart device market continues to grow, so to will concerns about privacy, security, and malicious software. This is especially true, because these mobile devices are relatively new. Our research focuses on increasing the security and privacy of user data on smart mobile devices. We propose three applications in this domain: (1) a service that provides private, mobile location sharing; (2) a secure, intuitive proximity networking solution; and (3) a potential attack vector in mobile devices, which utilizes novel covert channels. We also propose a first step defense mechanism against these covert channels. Our first project is the design and implementation of a service, which provides users with private and secure location sharing. This is useful for a variety of applications such as online dating, taxi cab services, and social networking. Our service allows users to share their location with one another with trust and location based access controls. We allow users to identify if they are within a certain distance of one another, without either party revealing their location to one another, or any third party. We design this service to be practical and efficient, requiring no changes to the cellular infrastructure and no explicit encryption key management for the users. For our second application, we build a modem, which enables users to share relatively small pieces of information with those that are near by, also known as proximity based networking. Currently there are several mediums which can be used to achieve proximity networking such as NFC, bluetooth, and WiFi direct. Unfortunately, these currently available schemes suffer from a variety of drawbacks including slow adoption by mobile device hardware manufactures, relatively poor usability, and wide range, omni-directional propagation. We propose a new scheme, which utilizes ultrasonic (high frequency) audio on typical smart mobile devices, as a method of communication between proximal devices. Because mobile devices already carry the necessary hardware for ultrasound, adoption is much easier. Additionally, ultrasound has a limited and highly intuitive propagation pattern because it is highly directional, and can be easily controlled using the volume controls on the devices. Our ultrasound modem is fast, achieving several thousand bits per second throughput, non-intrusive because it is inaudible, and secure, requiring attackers with normal hardware to be less than or equal to the distance between the sender and receiver (a few centimeters in our tests). Our third work exposes a novel attack vector utilizing physical media covert channels on smart devices, in conjunction with privilege escalation and confused deputy attacks. This ultimately results in information leakage attacks, which allow the attacker to gain access to sensitive information stored on a user\u27s smart mobile device such as their location, passwords, emails, SMS messages and more. Our attack uses our novel physical media covert channels to launder sensitive information, thereby circumventing state of the art, taint-tracking analysis based defenses and, at the same time, the current, widely deployed permission systems employed by mobile operating systems. We propose and implement a variety of physical media covert channels, which demonstrate different strengths such as high speed, low error rate, and stealth. By proposing several different channels, we make defense of such an attack much more difficult. Despite the challenging situation, in this work we also propose a novel defense technique as a first step towards research on more robust approaches. as a contribution to the field, we present these three systems, which together enrich the smart mobile experience, while providing mobile security and keeping privacy in mind. Our third approach specifically, presents a unique attack, which has not been seen in the wild , in an effort to keep ahead of malicious efforts

On the Feasibility of Acoustic Attacks Using Commodity Smart Devices

Sound at frequencies above (ultrasonic) or below (infrasonic) the range of human hearing can, in some settings, cause adverse physiological and psychological effects to individuals. In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of cyber-attacks that could make smart consumer devices produce possibly imperceptible sound at both high (17-21kHz) and low (60-100Hz) frequencies, at the maximum available volume setting, potentially turning them into acoustic cyber-weapons. To do so, we deploy attacks targeting different smart devices and take sound measurements in an anechoic chamber. For comparison, we also test possible attacks on traditional devices. Overall, we find that many of the devices tested are capable of reproducing frequencies within both high and low ranges, at levels exceeding those recommended in published guidelines. Generally speaking, such attacks are often trivial to develop and in many cases could be added to existing malware payloads, as they may be attractive to adversaries with specific motivations or targets. Finally, we suggest a number of countermeasures, both platform-specific and generic ones

Ultrasonic Data Transmission and Steganography

This project discusses the feasibility of using ultrasound to transmit data between computer systems, particularly computer systems that have been intentionally cut off from traditional networks for increased security. The goal of this project is to provide a synthesis of the current research that has been done into the use of ultrasonic data transmission, and to conduct a series of tests determining the validity of certain claims made in regards to ultrasonic data transmission within the information security community. All research, experiments, results, and inferences have been discussed in the context of how they relate to the realm of information security. All security concerns discovered during the course of this project have been outlined at the end of this paper, and potential remediation strategies have been suggested