As smartphone manufacturers are improving the ear speakers in their devices, it can become easier for malicious actors to leverage a particular side-channel for eavesdropping on a targeted user’s conversations, according to a team of researchers from several universities in the United States. The attack method, named EarSpy, is described in a paper published just before Christmas by researchers from Texas A&M University, Temple University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, and the University of Dayton. EarSpy relies on the phone’s ear speaker — the speaker at the top of the device that is used when the phone is held to the ear — and the device’s built-in accelerometer for capturing the tiny vibrations generated by the speaker.
— source securityweek.com | Dec 28, 2022
