Washington University Researchers have discovered that voice assistant programs like Siri can be hacked with ultrasonic sound waves that go undetected by human ears – but you probably won’t have to worry about it too much.
Those same researchers say the environment required to make this possible is very specific and not likely to be found in everyday life. The researchers presented their findings on the Siri and Google Assistant-backed phone hack at the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium on Feb. 24. Their findings report is nearly 20 pages long, but the team published a summary on the Washington University website shortly after the symposium.
The hack involves a series of pieces of equipment sending inaudible waves – which can still be picked up by most phone voice assistants – to a phone on the same table, and activating various functions of the phone, from taking selfies to reading out passwords or authentication codes in texts. 15 of 17 phones tested were vulnerable to this technique.
“We did it on metal,” assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering Ning Zhang said. “We did it on glass. We did it on wood. It still worked. We want to raise awareness of such a threat. I want everybody in the public to know this.”
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The conclusion reached by the researchers was that Siri and Google Assistant listen to sound frequencies much higher and lower than that of the human voice and when hit with ultrasonic waves in specific conditions, the programs will interpret such waves as a human voice.
Zhang and fellow researchers created a number of scenarios to use the method to steal information through Siri and Google Assistant. Each scenario included an ultrasonic wave generator, a hidden microphone used to listen to the program’s response, a piezoelectric transducer (which turns electrical signals into physical ones), and software capable of producing the necessary ultrasonic wave.
Thankfully, you can already see how unlikely it is that someone would be able to do this in public. Researchers found that softer materials failed to conduct the signal of the ultrasonic wave rendering the scenario a failure, so if you’re worried about this happening to you, just keep your phone on a napkin or in your pocket.
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Zhang has said that it’s unlikely this method of hacking will be used commonly: “I don’t think we will see such an attack a lot in common places, but probably used for a more targeted attack.”
Scientists recently discovered that we’re receiving wave signals from extragalactic space in an unexplained pattern, although these signals are radio and not ultrasonic. Scientists also discovered that the way we thought the brain processed movies might be false. For more science news, check out this story about dinosaur DNA remarkably preserved in a 75 million-year-old fossil. And while you’re at, check out how scientists created a bionic moon jellyfish recently.
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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.
Source: IGN.com Researchers Discover Ultrasonic Waves Can Be Used to Hack Modern Phones