AI Can Now Crack Your Password By Listening To Your Keystrokes
Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2025 3:56 am
14.08.2023
To keep your password secure when you log in, you should make sure no one is watching you to avoid an over-the-shoulder attack. But a new study from British researchers suggests it might be worth making sure no one is listening to your keystrokes, ZDNet reports .
While insider attacks involve directly penetrating a device, often through a “peek-a-boo,” side-channel attacks rely on interpreting information from the outside. For example, an acoustic attack might use the sounds of your keyboard keys to understand what was typed and use that information to hack into your accounts.
And now, according to new research, acoustic attacks pose a greater threat than ever before.
The experiment was conducted on a 16-inch azerbaijan mobile database Pro (2021) with 16 GB of memory and an Apple M1 Pro processor. Keyboard input was recorded on both an iPhone 13 Mini, which was placed 17 cm away on a microfiber cloth, and on the laptop using the built-in Zoom recording function.
Test configuration. Source: Durham University/University of Surrey/Royal Holloway, University of London
Test configuration. Source: Durham University/University of Surrey/Royal Holloway, University of London
After collecting data from a set of keystroke sounds, the researchers trained a deep learning model on it. Once the model was ready, they tested its accuracy on the remaining data.
The results showed that the model could identify the correct key with 95% accuracy in phone recordings and 93% in Zoom recordings, the study said.
Despite the high accuracy of the results, the researchers identified several ways users could protect themselves from attacks, including changing their typing style, using randomized passwords, using the shift key, and playing background sounds near the microphone during video calls.
To keep your password secure when you log in, you should make sure no one is watching you to avoid an over-the-shoulder attack. But a new study from British researchers suggests it might be worth making sure no one is listening to your keystrokes, ZDNet reports .
While insider attacks involve directly penetrating a device, often through a “peek-a-boo,” side-channel attacks rely on interpreting information from the outside. For example, an acoustic attack might use the sounds of your keyboard keys to understand what was typed and use that information to hack into your accounts.
And now, according to new research, acoustic attacks pose a greater threat than ever before.
The experiment was conducted on a 16-inch azerbaijan mobile database Pro (2021) with 16 GB of memory and an Apple M1 Pro processor. Keyboard input was recorded on both an iPhone 13 Mini, which was placed 17 cm away on a microfiber cloth, and on the laptop using the built-in Zoom recording function.
Test configuration. Source: Durham University/University of Surrey/Royal Holloway, University of London
Test configuration. Source: Durham University/University of Surrey/Royal Holloway, University of London
After collecting data from a set of keystroke sounds, the researchers trained a deep learning model on it. Once the model was ready, they tested its accuracy on the remaining data.
The results showed that the model could identify the correct key with 95% accuracy in phone recordings and 93% in Zoom recordings, the study said.
Despite the high accuracy of the results, the researchers identified several ways users could protect themselves from attacks, including changing their typing style, using randomized passwords, using the shift key, and playing background sounds near the microphone during video calls.