KeySweeper – Arduino-based passive wireless keyboard sniffer

Post by venaoy » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 8:06 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #26

mrb wrote: post #24

The most frustrating thing when reading about keyboard vendors implementing such insecure protocols is knowing that the nRF24LE1 chip Microsoft uses has all it needs for security: hardware accelerated support for AES , as well as a hardware random number generator [1]. Some comments here suggest using public/private crypto as a fix, but it would not even be necessary. During manufacturing they could simply generate a…

Logitech keyboards (and probably others as well) let you use a single receiver for all the logitech wireless devices ( http://www.logitech.com/en-us/promotions/6072 ). If you have a unique key embedded in each keyboard/dongle pair, you would lose the ability to do this. In addition, if you lost the dongle, you would be SOL. I think more people will care about the convenience instead of the security. Ideally, you coul…

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 8:10 PM UTC

tylersmith wrote: post #20

bithush wrote: post #17

This is a beautifully done hack. Using a legitimate USB charger. The GSM radio for 2G internet broadcast. The built in battery for short term unplugged continued sniffing. Trigger word SMS messages. Live streaming web portal. That is very, very cool. This is the kind of stealth monitoring device people just would never think to check and could easily be replaced without the user being any the wiser. This is a beautif…

He's done a number of (in)famous things. E.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samy_%28computer_worm%29

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 8:14 PM UTC

codethulu wrote: post #10

gesman wrote: post #4

I glad i use my old, trusty IBM keyboard :)

Those are vulnerable to other attack vectors. http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/publications/thesis/online/IM100855....

Post by MattHeard » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 8:21 PM UTC

VMG wrote: post #27

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a free market, and the vendor has all the incentives to maximize the money-in minus the money-out. If reducing the money-out means selling cheap junk that anyone could crack with a $7 microcontroller, so be it. The invisible hand, fumbling as usual.

Yes, let's get the government involved. They obviously have the best incentives for enforcing strong crypto here. The strong fist of the government never fumbles.

Post by bigiain » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 9:17 PM UTC

adamvalve wrote: post #19

SchizoDuckie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very specifically for Microsoft keyboards. There's multiple bugs that are exploited (both in the $1 receiver chip he's using and the fact that all MS keyboards start with the same bit for their mac address) that make it very easy in that specific case. Hold my beer while I perform a table flip and throw away all my Microsoft Wireless Keyboards

I recently switched back to usb Microsoft Natural keyboard for comfort from multiple versions of Microsoft wireless ergonomic keyboards but this hack makes me value the wire even more.