September 10, 2024 By Bill Toulas
A novel acoustic attack named ‘PIXHELL’ can leak secrets from air-gapped and audio-gapped systems, and without requiring speakers, through the LCD monitors they connect to.
In a PIXHELL attack, malware modulates the pixel patterns on LCD screens to induce noise in the frequency range of 0-22 kHz, carrying encoded signals within those acoustic waves that can be captured by nearby devices such as smartphones.
The researchers' tests showed that data exfiltration is possible at a maximum distance of 2 meters (6.5 ft), achieving a data rate of 20 bits per second (bps).
While this is too slow to make large file transfers practical, real-time keylogging and stealing small text files that might contain passwords or other information are still possible.