Hackers Can Know Your Password By Hearing How You Type On Your Phone

Hackers have always been a concern for many people when using digital devices. They cause attacks with malware that are disguised by codes, active content and scripts to infiltrate systems. Mobile phone pin codes and passwords are the top secret of each individual user as they can secure and keep their personal data and information safe. But now, hackers have a more sophisticated software that allows them to collect other people mobile phone pin codes and password by directly infecting an innate accessory for smartphones.

Through spyware applications on the device, hackers can now decode what users type on their phones. When users use their fingers to type on the smartphone's touch screen, it creates sound waves. Spy applications use the smartphone's microscope to sense those sound waves and collect user data and passwords exactly to the letter. This malware exists passively in your smartphones. Users may have accidentally got them when downloading applications.

This information is disclosed by research at Sweden’s Linköping University and Cambridge University. When the user clicks skip all application access rights, the sound waves created by typing on the phone themselves can be easily decoded. The researchers said:

Researchers have created a machine learning algorithm that can decode the vibrations of specific key combinations to prove its premise. They conducted tests on 45 users using Android phones containing the malware. The participants were asked to enter words and letters on Nexus 9 tablet and LG Nexus 5 smartphone containing this malicious Android application. They entered the password at three different locations in universities with different noise levels, including libraries, reading rooms with computers, large common rooms with an active coffee machine.

Malicious apps have recorded audio through the device's microphone when users enter their password on the phone. Special wave distortions are created in a position where users type the touch screen that will be captured by microphones on their device and thereby come out the text entered on the device.

The study also offers solutions to enhance security and combat attacks like these. Users can install something as same as a microphone switch that allows user to manually turn on and off the microphone on their device or the notification mode flashes every time the microphone is being used in the background by an application.