Hard Drive That Can Hear

Hard Drive of Hearing: Disks that Eavesdrop with a Synthesized Microphone Andrew Kwong¹, Wenyuan Xu², and Kevin Fu¹ ¹University of Michigan spar.eecs.umich.edu ²Zhejiang University usslab.org Abstract—Security conscious individuals may take considerable measures to disable sensors in order to protect their privacy. However, they often overlook the cyberphysical attack surface exposed by devices that were never designed to be sensors in the first place. Our research demonstrates that the mechanical components in magnetic hard disk drives behave as microphones with sufficient precision to extract and parse human speech. These unintentional microphones sense speech with high enough fidelity for the Shazam service to recognize a song recorded through the hard drive. This proof of concept attack sheds light on the possibility of invasion of privacy even in the absence of traditional sensors. We also present defense mechanisms, such as the use of ultrasonic aliasing, that can mitigate acoustic eavesdropping by synthesized microphones in hard disk drives. 1. Introduction Magnetic hard disk drives (HDDs) continue to persist in everything from legacy laptops to server racks. Because of their critical role in a wide variety of applications, hard drives make an appealing target for both cyber criminals and nation states alike. Kaspersky describes how an advanced hacking organization, dubbed the “Equation Group,” devel- Current Track PES Head Figure 1: The Position Error Signal (PES) measures the offset of the read/write head from the center of the track.

На изображении показана первая страница научной статьи «Hard Drive of Hearing: Disks that Eavesdrop with a Synthesized Microphone». В статье с серьёзным видом объясняется, что механические компоненты жёсткого диска могут работать как микрофон и подслушивать речь; шутка строится на неожиданной идее, что даже отключённые датчики не гарантируют приватность. EN: The image shows the first page of a research paper titled “Hard Drive of Hearing: Disks that Eavesdrop with a Synthesized Microphone.” In a serious academic style, it explains that mechanical components in a hard drive can function as a microphone and eavesdrop on speech; the joke comes from the unexpected idea that disabling sensors still may not guarantee privacy.

• @gentoomemes / 10391 2024-04-04