Super-secure air-gapped computers are vulnerable to a new type of attack that can turn a PC’s memory module into a modified Wi-Fi radio, which c

Air-Gap Attack Turns Memory Modules into Wi-Fi Radios

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2021-09-01 11:30:04

Super-secure air-gapped computers are vulnerable to a new type of attack that can turn a PC’s memory module into a modified Wi-Fi radio, which can then transmit sensitive data at 100 bits-per-second wirelessly to nearly six feet away.

Noted air-gap researcher Mordechai Guri created the proof-of-concept (PoC) attack and described it in a research paper released earlier this month under the auspices of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel’s cybersecurity research center.

“Malware in a compromised air-gapped computer can generate signals in the Wi-Fi frequency bands. The signals are generated through the memory buses — no special hardware is required,” Guri wrote (PDF).

A memory bus is made up of a set of wires and conductors that connect and transfer data from a computer’s main memory to a system’s central processing unit or a memory controller.

In his proof-of-concept attack, Guri showed how an adversary could manipulate the electrical current on a system’s DDR SDRAM bus in order to generate electromagnetic waves and transmit a weak Wi-Fi signal (2,400 GHz). It’s not a quick attack though: At a top speed of 100 bps, it would take 22 hours and 13 minutes to send 1MB of data to a receiving device no more than 69 inches away.