
After the malware makes your hijacked headphones hear instead of delivering sound, anybody can listen to what you say.
A lot of people are afraid of having their personal conversation being heard by others. This is why some of them cover up their webcam and their microphone when they are not using them. Apparently, this is not enough. Some researchers have just discovered a new way to spy: hijacked headphones.
Although it might seem strange and a little bit paranoid, it is true. A group of researchers at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University just managed to find a new way to spy on people. They managed to make a malware that can make your headphones hear instead of delivering sound.
They mentioned that it is actually easy because they just entered in the Realtek, which is normally installed on any device, and they changed some codecs in order to have these hijacked headphones. After the malware makes your hijacked headphones hear instead of delivering sound, anybody can listen to what you say.
This is a little scary, especially for those who are already paranoid about their privacy. Of course, in order for this to work somebody will have to have this malware installed for its headphones to “listen”. This happens because when a person has his headphones connected to the laptop, for instance, and he talks without using the headphones he makes sound vibrations and wave.
This malware is able to make the headphones perceive these vibrations and register them without the user knowing about it. The only solution for this problem, until there is a fix, is to unplug your headphones when you are not using them. No matter if you think that you don’t have hijacked headphones it is better to be safe.
Nobody needs to start worrying because the researchers just wanted to test a theory, in order to see if they can create hijacked headphones than can listen instead of delivering sound. Realtek will probably find a way to solve this problem too in a new update. The researchers mentioned that their software is not really malicious and that they only needed it to prove their theory.
The researchers also mentioned that people should know about any way in which others can spy them because it is a matter of privacy. The also said that people should be prepared for any innovation in this area because technology is developing new tricks every day.
Image source: Flickr
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