SonarSnoop: Active Acoustic Side-Channel Attacks
Published in International Journal of Information Security (IJIS), 2020
We report the first active acoustic side-channel attack. Speakers are used to emit human inaudible acoustic signals, and the echo is recorded via microphones, turning the acoustic system of a smart phone into a sonar system. The echo signal can be used to profile user interaction with the device. For example, a victim’s finger movements can be inferred to steal Android unlock patterns. In our empirical study, the number of candidate unlock patterns that an attacker must try to authenticate herself to a Samsung S4 phone can be reduced by up to 70% using this novel acoustic side-channel. The attack is entirely unnoticeable to victims. Our approach can be easily applied to other application scenarios and device types. Overall, our work highlights a new family of security threats.
Recommended citation: Cheng, P., Bagci, I. E., Roedig, U., Yan, J. (2020). "SonarSnoop: Active Acoustic Side-Channel Attacks." *International Journal of Information Security (IJIS)*, 19(2), 213–228.
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