your phone’s motion sensor can eavesdrop on you
Researchers have succeeded in eavesdropping on telephone conversations on smartphones by analyzing data captured by the motion sensor. This eavesdropping technique called ‘EarSpy’ can be exploited in malware.
EarSpy Eavesdropping Technique
Malicious people are always looking for new ways to obtain sensitive data from smartphone and PC users. It is therefore good that security researchers are making efforts to stay one step ahead of hackers. Researchers from Texas A&M University, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Temple University in Philadelphia, the University of Dayton and Rutgers University in New Jersey have succeeded in eavesdropping on telephone conversations with a new method.
The motion sensor in your phone is so precise that it can easily detect vibrations, even if they are caused by the sound your phone speaker is making. EarSpy, that’s how the technique was baptized. The researchers converted the raw motion data from telephone conversations into spectograms. These reveal information from phone calls with an astonishing degree of accuracy.
With EarSpy, researchers were able to recognize in 98 percent of cases whether your interlocutor is a man or a woman. Furthermore, the precise content of a conversation could be traced in 56 percent of the cases and it was possible to identify a person based on their voice in 92 percent of the situations.
Possible misuse
The researchers used a OnePlus 7T that runs on Android 11 and a OnePlus 9 that runs on Android 12 for their tests. On phones with newer Android versions, it is more difficult to obtain the necessary permissions and therefore vibrations are converted into sound in a less accurate way.
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Nevertheless, the technique remains a risk, because if your phone is infected by malware, such a rogue app can always ask permission to view your movement data. Users will see no problem with that. The researchers are now calling on smartphone manufacturers to place the motion sensors in smartphones in such a way that they are far enough away from sources that cause vibration. In addition, the sound pressure during telephone conversations must be limited.
Earlier we discussed how you can recognize malware on your phone and we wrote about an app that you can use to check whether a rogue app is installed on your smartphone.
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