Problem: Today’s post is inspired by a recent paper about a novel side-channel attack. As described on Twitter, ”This AI model can determine what you are typing just by listening to your keystrokes - with 95% accuracy.”
See below for more
A Practical Deep Learning-Based Acoustic Side Channel Attack on Keyboards
Joshua Harrison, Ehsan Toreini, Maryam Mehrnezhad
With recent developments in deep learning, the ubiquity of micro-phones and the rise in online services via personal devices, acoustic side channel attacks present a greater threat to keyboards than ever. This paper presents a practical implementation of a state-of-the-art deep learning model in order to classify laptop keystrokes, using a smartphone integrated microphone. When trained on keystrokes recorded by a nearby phone, the classifier achieved an accuracy of 95%, the highest accuracy seen without the use of a language model. When trained on keystrokes recorded using the video-conferencing software Zoom, an accuracy of 93% was achieved, a new best for the medium. Our results prove the practicality of these side channel attacks via off-the-shelf equipment and algorithms. We discuss a series of mitigation methods to protect users against these series of attacks.
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Solution: How could this innovation be used to create a company? One Twitter user speculated the following as a defense to these attacks:
This could be troubling if misused. But it might be a path to something I’ve always wanted: a keyboard that is basically just dumb keys that doesn’t have anything electrical connected – so can’t break. I thought it would be touch-pad+haptics, but this is an even simpler solution.
Out of curiosity, I asked Claude. Here’s an Anthropic-inspired business idea:
Keystrokes Inc. is a cybersecurity company founded to protect against the growing threat of acoustic side channel attacks on keyboards and keystrokes. With the rise of deep learning, internet-connected devices with microphones, and remote work, these attacks have become incredibly cheap and effective to mount. Our mission is to safeguard individual privacy and enterprise security against this audio eavesdropping danger.
Keystrokes has developed an artificial intelligence-powered acoustic fingerprinting platform to detect and neutralize attempts to record and reconstruct keystrokes using smartphone microphones or other ambient audio capture devices. Our system uses advanced machine learning algorithms to analyze acoustic signals and map unique audio fingerprints to different keyboard events in real-time. By building up a library of audio fingerprints, our AI engine can identify even subtle unauthorized recording devices by the noise they introduce.
When a malicious third-party recording threat is identified, Keystrokes automatically triggers countermeasures like targeted audio masking, alerts to the user, or even disablement of the recording device. Our platform integrates acoustic fingerprint data with device IDs and metadata to pinpoint the source of the attack for mitigation. Keystrokes offers a subscription model to install our acoustic sentry agents on enterprise servers, employee endpoints, and mobile devices to provide comprehensive monitoring and defense.
Beyond our core acoustic fingerprinting capability, Keystrokes will offer additional services:
Consulting to audit businesses for acoustic side channel vulnerabilities and provide tailored defense recommendations
Custom countermeasure development to protect against novel or sophisticated audio attacks
Ongoing security research to identify emerging acoustic threats and update our fingerprints
Endpoint software to blacklist known eavesdropping device IDs and metadata
Our founding team combines expertise in machine learning, audio processing, hardware security, and threat intelligence. With our unique IP and focus on this growing but neglected attack vector, Keystrokes is positioned to become the market leader in acoustic side channel defense. We estimate our total addressable market at over $10 billion among organizations needing to protect against eavesdropping.
Keystrokes will target mid-size and enterprise businesses first to validate our technology. With a successful launch and traction, individual consumer versions of our acoustic sentry will provide a significant additional revenue stream. Our goal is to become the indispensable trusted guardian against audio intercept attacks, achieving over $1 billion in annual recurring revenue within 5 years.
Monetization: S
Contributed by: Michael Bervell (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)