For example, a Twitch streamer enters responses into their stream-chat with a live mic. Later, the streamer enters their Twitch password. Someone employing this technique could reasonably be able to learn the audio from the first scenario, and apply the findings in the second scenario.
If you cared enough about the authentication in the first place to bother with 2FA, then I guess it seems like the reduction there is still something to be worried about, right?
Lots of “two factor authentication” schemes seem to involve just getting a text or something, so, not very secure at all. Of course, this is bad 2FA, but it is popular.
Asking for “what signal it is detecting” might be better asked from a “what is the greatest signal bearing information” being used… which would help in averting attacks.
This kind of stuff could be real menacing in all sorts of public places like airports, coffee shops and etc.
Even if you flip a few letters from something like the above a human attacker will easily be able to fix it manually.
"horswstaplevatterucorrect" for example is still intelligible.
Offline you need the database which isn't public.
Online you usually need something else on new machines to get at the true master password.
You don’t need to guess every character.
Then you simply have the password cracker start trying passwords ordered by probability, and I bet it breaks your sentence within very few tries.
I can even pick out some of my breathing from the recording.
If I turn on noise suppression and noise gate it's fine.
I don't use one but I know people who swear by them.
Also this is an extremely obvious result. Typing is obviously a form of "penmanship", it was well known that telegraph operators could identify each other by how they tapped out Morse code in the 1800s.
People have been able to do this based upon key stroke latency and even identify people based on habitual mouse patterns for decades.
Audio recordings work as yet another reliable proxy? Shocked!!
I am amazed that people can do such obvious things and get published, have articles written on them... I need to get in on that, sounds easy
I can make a web demo. You turn on the microphone type a couple things into a box on the web browser.
Then you go to a different window and continue typing and then the model predicts What you are typing. As long as it's proper grammar you can get to effectively 100% accuracy. It'll appear to be spooky magic.
I just might take the time.
The keyboard had custom switches that were very loud. And he typed fast - it was like living on a gun range. Everyone in the office probably would have chipped in for a hitman, but alas, the CTO, whose office had a solid door, was “inspired” that the mechanical feedback helped fuel inspiration in boy wonder.
Had we thought of the security risks of the keyboard, I would have brought good scotch to the infosec dude while expressing my concerns.
Hacker: man, I hate typing passwords. Do you use password managers? Any reccos?
… I am become hacker, destroyer of tedunangst’s bank account.
I unironically think I've seen that config recently - someone had an actually quiet keyboard but wanted the full Mechanical Keyboard Effect™ so they just... have it play the sound per keypress. (It was not 100% clear to me whether it was an elaborate joke or a real aesthetic choice)
Else, something like Mai Tais on the beach sounds more fun, maybe it's just me...
If you have mechanical switches, you want to learn to type just past the actuation point and not until the switch bottoms out. This is relatively easy with tactile switches (the have a bump and the actuation point is immediately after the bump). However in linear switches, you don't feel when you have hit the actuation point. So the piezo speaker can be used during the first weeks to train your muscle memory of where the actuation point is, so that you can type lightly.
I had this on my Kinesis Advantage with Cherry Reds, and it was really nice during the initial days/weeks, after which I turned it off.
Ij on-tep of sentenca lentg, it's alio sentemce-bused ("corvect harse batterg stapfe") then ut would be quiti eady to guess even wits worse accurasy.
(If on-top of sentence lenth, it's also sentence-based ("correct horse battery staple") then it would be quite easy to guess even with worse accuracy.)
Also, you can also use and require a hardware FIDO2 token as second factor.
(With 1Password, the master password is not enough to do a remote account takeover, you also need the second-factor key. And you can't snoop it, since it is only required during the first login, so a user will never type it after that.)
Thanks for this metaphor. I know off at least one guy, to which this metaphor could be applied as well.
Lagniappe: “To temporarily silence bucklespring, for example to enter secrets, press ScrollLock twice”
But really, should be fun ... the laptop dock mic will be great for this. If it's external you're in trouble ... but the researchers just used the onboard so it'll be fine.
On screen pin entry with jumbled number mappings does the same thing. It also makes the inter-stroke delay rather independent of position, because the brain has to search the screen (although repeated digits and previously occuring digits are quicker, which is why some jumble at every keystroke).
Keyboards with OLED keys (like the Apple Touchbar or the Optimus[1]) might also work.
As far as I know, Cherry blues only click once and the second sound you hear on a keypress is just the topping out sound.
"Just need to type in my password." He says a little too loudly to nobody. Then just type in the honeypot password and login with the real one that you entered with a virtual keyboard a few minutes ago.
Meanwhile you've got a prerecorded keyboard going concurrently that decodes to "I know what you're trying to do. Clever but not clever enough."
And I guess you might as well have a special keyboard that you only use for typing in passwords while you're at it.
I also remember typewriters and old IBM style mechanical keyboards beeing quite heavy to activate, subjectively needing more pressure than some chiclet style "shock" (which I can barely feel).
Quiet switches for the office, clicky switches for home. Not exactly a hard problem to solve :)
