Chinese and U.S. security researchers have revealed that cyber criminals can easily get your passwords and every single information by analyzing the radio signals that are emitted to provide Wi-Fi and how they interact with your body movements. The scientists discovered this by developing the WindTalker system, which has the ability to study old and modern Wi-Fi networks and secretly get your data, by taking a look at the directions that radio waves travel.
Scanning Your Fingers Movements Can Get Your Information Stolen
According to the International Business Times, although it was known that it can be done with the older-one-antenna wireless router, this is way easier with the latest, giving the fact that these comes with a technology called Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO), which have more antennas and enables the router to connect and transmit information from many devices at the same time.
This makes that if a hacker uses the WindTalker system or anything similar, it could scan your fingers´ movements when you´re using your smartphone or playing a video game in a gaming console, since the routers are designed to manage every single change to the radio signal, to ensure that every single device that you have, receives the best quality signal. Basically, all of this consists of taking advantage of Wi-Fi´s structure.
Cyber Criminals Could Get Your Payments app And Banks Passwords
According to Gizmodo, the Association of Computing Machinery explained that WindTalker was implemented on several phones as an experiment, and the researchers realized that cyber criminals can get the password easily by studying how the user typed, which can be seen clearly since the finger movements alters the radio signal and are imprinted into it.
This means that if a cyber criminal controls a public Wi-Fi access point in which your smartphone is connected; they can monitor your device. The WindTalker system could spy with an accuracy rate between 70 percent and 81 percent any kind of six-digit password, which are commonly used by payment apps and banks. This study was held last month in Vienna, Austria, and involved the Shanghai Jaio Tong University, the University of Massachusetts Boston and the University of South Florida.
