TEMPEST attacks, exploiting Electro Magnetic emissions in order to gather data, are often mentioned by the security community, movies and wanna-be spies (or NSA employees we guess…). While some expensive attacks, especially the ones against CRT/LCD monitors, have been fully researched and described, some others remain relatively unknown and haven’t been fully (publicly) researched.

Following the overwhelming success of the SatNav Traffic Channel hijacking talk we continue with the tradition of presenting cool and cheap hardware hacking projects.

We will explore two unconventional approaches for remotely sniffing keystrokes on laptops and desktop computers using mechanical energy emissions and power line leakage. The only thing you need for successful attacks are either the electrical grid or a distant line of sight, no expensive piece of equipment is required.

For the first and only time we will feature our talk in a lab session style, working together with the audience teaching the underlying theories and basics for assembling and programming the necessary equipment related to the two attacks.

About Daniele Bianco

Daniele Bianco is a system administrator and IT consultant. He began his professional career as a system administrator during his early years at university.

His interest for centralized management and software integration in Open Source environments has focused his work on design and development of suitable R&D infrastructure. For the time being Daniele is working as a consultant for Italian astrophysics research institutes, involving support for the design, development and the administration of IT infrastructure.

One of his hobbies has always been playing with hardware and recently he has been pointing his attention on in-car wireless and navigation systems. He’s the resident Hardware Hacker for international consultancy Inverse Path Ltd. Daniele holds a Bachelor’s degree in physics from University of Trieste

** Note: Presenting with Andrea Barisani