Researchers crack the worlds toughest encryption by listening to the sounds made by your cpu

[Lovell]

Researchers crack the world?s toughest encryption by listening to the tiny sounds made by your computer?s CPU

 

 

Security researchers have successfully broken one of the most secure encryption algorithms, 4096-bit RSA, by listening ? yes, with a microphone ? to a computer as it decrypts some encrypted data. The attack is fairly simple and can be carried out with rudimentary hardware. The repercussions for the average computer user are minimal, but if you?re a secret agent, power user, or some other kind of encryption-using miscreant, you may want to reach for the Rammstein when decrypting your data.

 

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/173108-researchers-crack-the-worlds-toughest-encryption-by-listening-to-the-tiny-sounds-made-by-your-computers-cpu

[fusi0n]

That's crazy awesome.. 

[McKay]

To protect our systems while they decrypt data, Smooth Jazz will be deployed in 3....2....1...

 

[XerXis]

where the hell did they find a smartphone with a mic sensitive enough to be able to pickup 150khz sound waves and be able to process them. I want that smartphone! :p

[neufuse Veteran]

this would be VERY hard to do with CPU's running lots of cores... because each one would be doing multiple tasks at once and each would generate its own sound at the same time... you'd somehow have to demux it and know which sound came from what core at the time....*head starting to hurt from the math behind this*

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

this would be VERY hard to do with CPU's running lots of cores... because each one would be doing multiple tasks at once and each would generate its own sound at the same time... you'd somehow have to demux it and know which sound came from what core at the time....*head starting to hurt from the math behind this*

 

It'd be difficult to do with any sort of noise -- I'd imagine preemptive scheduling & varying load would work just as well on a single core as a multicore in throwing this off.   It also requires a baseline to be built using an existing known encryption key so it isn't like you could just walk up with a listening device and side channel attack the computer to figure out encryption keys. You'd have to social engineer the user into doing something for you first and then identify the precise moment to build the baseline for the cpu.

 

And at that point, whoever it is is just going to be beat you with a club and you will cough up the passphase through threats of violence and death instead :rofl:...

[firey]

As the saying goes: "Anything man made, can be man broken."

[Liana]

Is there any encryption left now that hasn't been broken?

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

Is there any encryption left now that hasn't been broken?

 

Low-tech old encryption ;-)

 

http://geeknizer.com/the-encrypted-message-left-unbroken-since-1942-world-war-2/

[vcfan]

same concept as differential power/electromagnetic analysis, but it isn't practical in the real world. secure smartcards and microchips from even a decade ago,  run on an internal clock,and give off dummy clock/instruction cycles to combat this very type of attack, meaning even if you took a million samples with identical instructions or at the exact same clock, they will all differ, making this type of attack impossible to accomplish.

[Raa]

That's insane!

I read an article a few years back that said someone could find out what you're downloading by timing the difference between the network and hard drive light flashes... I thought that was crazy too. :|

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

That's insane!

I read an article a few years back that said someone could find out what you're downloading by timing the difference between the network and hard drive light flashes... I thought that was crazy too. :|

 

They can because if the light is flashing then it is pron being downloaded. Otherwise it isn't flashing...  :rolleyes:

[Raa]

They can because if the light is flashing then it is pron being downloaded. Otherwise it isn't flashing...  :rolleyes:

Wrong sort of flashing! :laugh:

[rfirth]

Is there any encryption left now that hasn't been broken?

 

One time pad. Absolutely impossible to break.

[Liana]

One time pad. Absolutely impossible to break.

This is interesting, thank you. I hadn't heard of it before. :)

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

As interesting as this attack is, it isn't "broken" in any sense of the term.

It's a side channel attack, but instead of timing the time taken to decode a block or the power draw by the CPU, they're just listening to mechanical stresses.

[primexx]

One time pad. Absolutely impossible to break.

 

only if it's implemented perfectly, which it often is not.

[rfirth]

only if it's implemented perfectly, which it often is not.

 

As long as you don't do something stupid.

 

No, that's not the drawback. The real drawback is that it requires a 'pad' the same size as the data you wish to encrypt/decrypt, and both parties must have the same pad. But it's the (classical) basis of quantum cryptography.

[123456789A]

Is there any encryption left now that hasn't been broken?

 

ROT13

[srbeen]

where the hell did they find a smartphone with a mic sensitive enough to be able to pickup 150khz sound waves and be able to process them. I want that smartphone! :p

 

Ultrasonic mics. I'm assuming they wrote a program on the phone, then 'tricked' it into using a headset for recording so it'd use the ultrasonic mic to prove a point.

[Praetor]

ROT13

 

better use it twice for double safety :laugh: :rofl:

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

i would have never thought to try to break it that way. props to the person that came up with the idea.