Cybercriminals can remotely interact with your device with an ‘invisible finger’ | technology

It is possible that they could access your iPad remotely and without malware accessing it.

Electromagnetic fields are not fully compatible with electronic devices, and recent research has now shown that a cyber criminal You can use this look To access and manage our devices remotely.

Now researchers from the University of Florida and the University of New Hampshire Submitted Report on the so-called “invisible finger” attack on the Black Hat USA 2022 in Las Vegas in which a flag, robotic arm and various antenna arrays were used to simulate a finger touching the touch screens of spacecraft.

To do this, various hidden antennas are triggered to indicate the location of the target device and also to generate an electromagnetic field at precise frequencies to send voltage signals to the sensors on the screen so that the processor can later interpret these signals as if they were some touch.

With this hack, they were able to simulate taps, long presses, and swipes in any direction on multiple devices.

“It behaves like a finger doing the work. We can even create an omni-directional slide on the iPad or Surface. We can totally use this to unlock gesture based lock‘,” explains the doctoral candidate from the University of Florida and keynote speaker at the conference. Hao Qishan.

Using this technique, they were able to install malware on their Android phone and were also able to send money using PayPal.

But some tests were thwarted by the system’s inability to activate hitboxes Small like Android dialogs which don’t act as little buttons.

It is a technology that is difficult for cybercriminals to use Because it will require all the elements to be very close to each otherOnly a few centimeters.

On the other hand, the cost of equipment is high, with a robotic arm of such characteristics worth several thousand euros, to which it will be necessary to add various pieces of expensive equipment and also a deep knowledge of how to accurately and operate the voltages necessary for recording gestures.

It is only valid in a very short range Because it is only effective within 3 or 4 cmIdeal only for laboratory work, but difficult to use in a real-world environment.

He says that it is a completely new attack vector and that it could be improved by cybercriminals in the future, so touch screen manufacturers should consider implementing different security techniques.