Airgap jumping malware

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zaptor

745 posts

Ultimate Geek

#133773 1-Nov-2013 17:15

Not really sure where to put this one.

Anyway, found this interesting article.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/meet-badbios-the-mysterious-mac-and-pc-malware-that-jumps-airgaps/

Fascinating infection mechanism.

gzt

17104 posts

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#926326 2-Nov-2013 17:31

It's an interesting one. No hint of independent confirmation from anyone else. In fairness to Dragos he's not the one hyping it, but on the other hand he does have a conference coming up Nov 13 - 14. Maybe some more details will release there or maybe it will be in progress for a while.

Skolink

1081 posts

Uber Geek

#926561 3-Nov-2013 14:12

I think it is nonsense, or at least this claim:

Strangest of all was the ability of infected machines to transmit small amounts of network data with other infected machines even when their power cords and Ethernet cables were unplugged and their Wi-Fi and Bluetooth cards were removed.

.
Ah, just read it again more carefully; laptops running on batteries, not an un-powered desktop machine.

Lias

5589 posts

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#926880 4-Nov-2013 10:22

As some of the commentary has said, None of the technologies potentially being used here are impossible, and given time and manpower something like this could potentially be made. In light of what we know about flame/stuxnet, APT's, NSA spying, etc, I don't think it's at all unrealistic to assume this in in fact a real threat and was probably authored by a well resourced government. What it definitely is is bloody scary thou!

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ubergeeknz

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Vocus

#926901 4-Nov-2013 10:47

This does not seem legit. Surely if you had something THIS interesting you'd be bringing in other researchers. It seems he has not (in supposedly '3 years' of observing this virus) - nor has he done any useful analysis. I'm calling urban legend in the making on this one. Sure it's all technically feasible, but that doesn't mean it's actually happening in the wild.

zaptor

745 posts

Ultimate Geek

#945178 4-Dec-2013 10:16

Well, looks like someone has actually implemented the concept:
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/12/scientist-developed-malware-covertly-jumps-air-gaps-using-inaudible-sound/

Of course, there are caveats to the tech. Although, initial implementations are always immature.
Still, it's an impressive covert intrusion mechanism.