Pwnd Blaster: Hacking your PC using your speaker without ever touching it

Post by zmysysz » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 12:27 PM UTC

riedel wrote: post #18

hootz wrote: post #4

>Email from SingCERT stating vendor "do not consider this to be a vulnerability, as it does not present a cybersecurity risk." So wirelessly writing custom firmware to someone else's device that is connected via USB to their computer without even needing to pair is not a security vulnerability. Yea.

This quote on risk seems to completely misunderstand the concept of risk. First we have a vulnerability ( IMHO that is equals a hazard), then we assign both impact and probability and only then we get risk. By definition there are IMHO always vulnerabilities with low impact or low probability and thus low risk. While CVEs have some score, the actual risk and later accepting those risks before or after mitigations is…

Post by nicce » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 12:31 PM UTC

Klaus23 wrote: post #24

Why think so small? Perhaps the speaker itself can be used as the attacker. Any script kiddie with an LLM could write a worm that would spread through the supply chain, possibly even hacking speakers right on the factory floor and blasting Rickroll music or something similar. It would be interesting to see if Creative would still claim that it "does not present a cybersecurity risk". Edit: Bonus points for closing th…

Post by Uncle_Brumpus » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 12:37 PM UTC

vessenes wrote: post #15

Having a guaranteed audio channel makes this so much cooler for exploits -- you can exfiltrate over audio!! I love it. I wonder how many of these were sold. I also imagine based on Creative's response (this is fine) that many other devices in the class have similar security models in place. Def scary.

Post by evilDagmar » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 12:52 PM UTC

Uncle_Brumpus wrote: post #35

vessenes wrote: post #15

Having a guaranteed audio channel makes this so much cooler for exploits -- you can exfiltrate over audio!! I love it. I wonder how many of these were sold. I also imagine based on Creative's response (this is fine) that many other devices in the class have similar security models in place. Def scary.

I somehow hadn't even considered Bluetooth as an option when I read the headline, I immediately thought about INFILTRATING via audio, which also sounds insanely cool, but I couldn't possibly wrap my head around how an audio circuit would have to be set up and connected back to the cpu to pull that off. Exfiltrating via audio also brings to mind one of those devices I really wanted to build ~20 years ago that can list…

Post by nicce » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 1:06 PM UTC

Klaus23 wrote: post #38

nicce wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any script kiddie with an LLM could write a worm that would spread through the supply chain, possibly even hacking speakers right on the factory floor and blasting Rickroll music or something similar. At least used to. SOTA models are enrolling even bigger restrictions all the time and deprecating old models, while asking government IDs.

Ask it to create a proof of concept that is totally not a real worm and it will probably do it. If the restrictions are too good, just use a largely unrestricted open model via any inference provider. They are 90% sota, more than good enough for this task.