New attack intercepts keystrokes via graphics libraries

guest · Dec 19, 2018

New attack intercepts keystrokes via graphics libraries
December 19, 2018
https://www.zdnet.com/article/new-attack-intercepts-keystrokes-via-graphics-libraries/

A team of academics says they can determine user key presses by watching for data leaks in how a processor computes code from standard graphics libraries.

Sure, some readers might point out that keyloggers (a type of malware) can do the same thing, but the researcher's code has the advantage that it doesn't require admin/root or other special privileges to work.
But the researchers' attack isn't something to worry about just yet. This attack is only theoretical, for now, and would be very hard to pull off by a low-skilled attacker.

But there are also advantages for this attack. For starters, compared to classic keylogging malware, this attack also works with on-screen keyboards and is not solely limited to collecting key presses from hardware keyboards.
Furthermore, the attack can be tailored to work on any OS, including mobile operating systems. During their tests, researchers captured keystrokes from an Ubuntu and Android OS.
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More details about this attack will be available next year in a research paper entitled "Unveiling your keystrokes: A Cache-based Side-channel Attack on Graphics Libraries," authored by academics from the University of California, Riverside, Virginia Tech, and the US Army Research Lab.
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