An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone
1–10 of 280 posts
Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone
#2We have a chance to notice this when it's mediated by a browser. Native apps don't barf all over the console and thus escape such scrutiny.
I first considered this when a friend told me about a brand of lawnmower of which I had never heard let alone searched (mowing lawns is the least interesting activity I can imagine), and one minute later a podcast app had a big banner at the top by which I could purchase a lawnmower of that exact brand. I don't have important conversations in the vicinity of mobile phones anymore.
Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone
#3Injecting malware into ads is as old as ad networks. There are even ad networks that hijack the ads of other networks and replace the original ads with their own.
There are also many different types of clickjacking:
Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone
#4We have a chance to notice this when it's mediated by a browser. Native apps don't barf all over the console and thus escape such scrutiny. I first considered this when a friend told me about a brand of lawnmower of which I had never heard let alone searched (mowing lawns is the least interesting activity I can imagine), and one minute later a podcast app had a big banner at the top by which I could purchase a lawnmo…
Has anyone seen any well done research showing these effects?
Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone
#5I wonder if it's a fingerprinting attempt gone wrong? I can't see a reasonable even malicious reason for eavesdropping on mic/camera at scale like that, you'll be capturing a ton of data you need to manually process/clean up which takes time/resources, most people won't stay on the page long enough to capture enough sensitive info and even then, eavesdropped conversations seem pretty useless unless you also have the whole context and information on the person you're targeting to be able to effectively misuse that data.
Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone
#6The Exhibit A why no one will ever convince me to turn off my ad blocker or switch away from Firefox. It's a great feeling to just not have to worry about this entire class of exploits.
Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone
#7Well, at least that requires clicking (not to diminish this report) but five years ago it's a zero-click proposition (like Forbes: https://www.networkworld.com/article/3021113/forbes-malware-...). While I don't want to diminish their revenue, the fact that blocking online ads significantly strengthens your security posture is not lost to private companies and governments (like US CISA: https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Capaci...) alike.
Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone
#8We have a chance to notice this when it's mediated by a browser. Native apps don't barf all over the console and thus escape such scrutiny. I first considered this when a friend told me about a brand of lawnmower of which I had never heard let alone searched (mowing lawns is the least interesting activity I can imagine), and one minute later a podcast app had a big banner at the top by which I could purchase a lawnmo…
I've heard similar stories many times but every time it seems to be baader-meinhof effect/frequency illusion or that the linking is not via audio but something else. People have man-in-the-middle checked advertising traffic to see if they either stream audio or send spoken keywords to ad servers and they do not seem to do that. It's more likely that it saw your phone and your friends at similar locations and your friend had searched for the brand before, therefore linking your ad profile to the brand.
Do you think the apps on your phone real-time stream all mic audio or that they run speech-to-text on your device?
Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone
#9We have a chance to notice this when it's mediated by a browser. Native apps don't barf all over the console and thus escape such scrutiny. I first considered this when a friend told me about a brand of lawnmower of which I had never heard let alone searched (mowing lawns is the least interesting activity I can imagine), and one minute later a podcast app had a big banner at the top by which I could purchase a lawnmo…
Has anyone seen any well done research showing these effects?
I've heard it from more folks than I'd like to. And counting them all as crazy or paranoid is less believable than the alternative.
Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone
#10The Exhibit A why no one will ever convince me to turn off my ad blocker or switch away from Firefox. It's a great feeling to just not have to worry about this entire class of exploits.
also tape your laptop's camera