With the abundance of connected devices making their ways into our homes, increasing levels of data may allow for more accurate methods for remote surveillance. By measuring the strength of ambient signals emitted from devices, a site can be remotely monitored for movement. That is to say, WiFi signals may soon pose a physical security vulnerability.
In a study from the University of Chicago and the University of California, Santa Barbara, researchers built on earlier studies where they could use similar techniques to “see through walls” to demonstrate a proof-of-concept for passive listening. Attackers don’t need to transmit signals or break encryptions to gain access to a victim’s location – they just need to listen to the ambient signals coming from connected devices, making it more difficult to track bad actors down.
This is not new news at all as I have posted about it before but WiFi as well as Bluetooth is revealing a lot out us (Bluetooth beacons can passively detect when you p[ass by a particular location, our home WiFi SSIDs were plotted and recorded by Google Maps and probably others) so unless you are going to completely disable WiFi, Bluetooth, or build a Faraday cage, there is going to be information leaking out from you.
For most the convenience and them not committing any crimes means they don’t worry too much about this. But like we have seen private information being exploited by Facebook for financial gain, we can probably expect or these new forms of tracking to also be exploited in future as it is also easier and easier to get the information. You can apply some basic protections though like reducing WiFi router power, enabling SSL on your router, disabling SSID advertising, improving choice of password, applying MAC address authentication, consider hard-wiring devices to the router instead of using WiFi (so that you could disable WiFi when away from home for longer periods).
Wonder if we will see WiFi signal disruptor in future – that sort of swirl around router antennas to deliberately vary the signal… watch an advertising space near you.
See https://hackaday.com/2019/11/28/your-wifi-signals-are-revealing-your-location/
#security #technology
#^Your WiFi Signals Are Revealing Your Location
The home may be the hearth, but it’s not going to be a place of safety for too long. With the abundance of connected devices making their ways into our homes, increasing levels of data may al…