Academics Turn RAM Into Wi-Fi Cards to Steal Data From Air-Gapped Systems
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AzumaHazuki:
Academics turn RAM into Wi-Fi cards to steal data from air-gapped systems:
Academics from an Israeli university have published new research today detailing a technique to convert a RAM card into an impromptu wireless emitter and transmit sensitive data from inside a non-networked air-gapped computer that has no Wi-Fi card.
Named AIR-FI, the technique is the work of Mordechai Guri, the head of R&D at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Israel.
Over the last half-decade, Guri has led tens of research projects that investigated stealing data through unconventional methods from air-gapped systems.
[...] In his research paper, titled "AIR-FI: Generating Covert WiFi Signals from Air-Gapped Computers," Guri shows that perfectly timed read-write operations to a computer's RAM card can make the card's memory bus emit electromagnetic waves consistent with a weak Wi-Fi signal.
This signal can then be picked up by anything with a Wi-Fi antenna in the proximity of an air-gapped system, such as smartphones, laptops, IoT devices, smartwatches, and more.
Journal Reference:
Guri, Mordechai. AIR-FI: Generating Covert Wi-Fi Signals from Air-Gapped Computers, (DOI: https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.06884)
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