Information security
fromCSO Online
1 day agoIs your computer's mouse listening to you?
High-sensitivity mice with high polling rates and DPI can enable acoustic eavesdropping by detecting voice vibrations through surfaces.
The mouse sitting next to you can be turned into a microphone thanks to some cunning use of its sensors to pick up vibrations from your voice in an attack dubbed Mic-E-Mouse. Researchers at UC Irvine have found that optical mice equipped with 20,000 DPI sensors and decent latency can be used as a basic microphone with software designed to figure out speech patterns based on the vibration of the user's voice. The team used a $35 mouse to test the system and found it could capture speech with 61 percent accuracy, depending on voice frequency.