acoustic-keylogger

And having a microphone in the same chassis as the keyboard would make creating a keylogger easier. A microphone in the same room as the keyboard can be made into a keylogger[1]. [1] <https://github.com/shoyo/acoustic-keylogger>

How "not terrible" are we talking here. I can totally believe this works with a proper microphone next to the keyboard in a room with no other sounds. A phone mic in an office environment though? I would be very surprised. The sample from that link seems to be the former: https://github.com/shoyo/acoustic-keylogger/blob/master/data... Doesn't really tell me anything about how realistic this attack is.

Every key stroke has a unique sound signature. You just need to record it with a microphone that isn't terrible. For this reason a bugged room can be a bug in every keyboard in that room if the attacker is assumed to be sophisticated. There have been some projects which attempted this[1]. It may be hard to do a non-terrible DIY laser microphone that would allow to achieve this while targeting a non-laptop surface. After you have the recording the biggest challenge is a problem solving one, you need to isolate the waveform for every keystroke, convert it to something that can be compared with other waveforms (and cluster them) and then solve the resultant substitution cipher (waveform -> key identity). If the keyboard was used for any length of time, you can assume the entry of common words and phrases occurred at some point and the soluti

With acoustic access, attacking the human directly is more advantageous. You can log the sound of every key press and differentiate between them. Then solve the resultant primitive substitution cipher - each key will have a distinct sound signature, solve the mapping. Don't need physical access to the keyboard at any point. Example: <https://github.com/shoyo/acoustic-keylogger>

You don't even need to attach it, other placements are sufficient as well. An example of how an attack can be performed: <https://github.com/shoyo/acoustic-keylogger> Room bugged = keyboard keylogged

If he was under surveillance, all it takes is a microphone in the same room as his keyboard and it's over: <https://github.com/shoyo/acoustic-keylogger>