Your computer leaks secret information

This is somewhat worrying development as Wired writes that Researchers develop palm-sized device, built for less than $300, that can steal laptop crypto keys using radio waves leaked by its processor.

This Radio Bug Can Steal Laptop Crypto Keys, Fits Inside a Pita article tells that the list of paranoia-inducing threats to your computer’s security grows daily: Keyloggers, trojans, infected USB sticks, ransomware…and now the rogue falafel sandwich. Researchers at Tel Aviv University and Israel’s Technion research institute have developed a new palm-sized device that can wirelessly steal data from a nearby laptop based on the radio waves leaked by its processor’s power use. It is is designed to allow anyone to “listen” to the accidental radio emanations of a computer’s electronics from 19 inches away and derive the user’s secret decryption keys. The Tel Aviv researchers focused their attack on extracting the keys stored by GnuPG, an open source and widely used version of the encryption software PGP. The Israeli researchers’ ability to steal data from unwitting computers’ radio waves isn’t exactly new. PITA takes its samples at 100 kiloherz.

Read the researchers’ full technical paper Stealing Keys from PCs using a Radio: Cheap Electromagnetic Attacks on Windowed Exponentiation at Scribd:

Some related links on spying your computer though RF emissions:

Meet KeySweeper, the $10 USB charger that steals MS keyboard strokes article tells about cheap ($10) DIY device that plucks out every keystroke inputted to a Microsoft wireless keyboard and can fit inside USB wall charger.

KeyKeriki v1.0 – 27MHz page has a whitepaper “27Mhz Wireless Keyboard Analysis Report” on a device and software that can listen to data on wireless keyboards operating at 27 MHz.