8 ms·

KeySweeper – Arduino-based passive wireless keyboard sniffer

462 points by mathetic 12y ago

pjonesdotca 12y ago
Looking at the list of projects also done (by going to root of url) is quite impressive. http://samy.pl/ http://samy.pl/
- codelitt 12y ago
  Very much so. Seeing my user name populated in the bottom task bar was a little unnerving.
  - jamiek88 12y ago
    Being marked 'you have nothing to worry about' was somehow equally as unnerving. I love that 'desktop as website' theme, gonna steal it.
- kawsper 12y ago
  It found my unique Imgur username. So I guess that is where he gets the username from.
  - tomvangoethem 12y ago
    If you're curious on how he "finds out", check out his other video (Quickjack - Hacking Facebook likes with Clickjacking): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCkSVGhIEb4#t=217 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCkSVGhIEb4#t=217
- leni536 12y ago
  Oh, I do know pwnat. It could be quite useful. edit: It seems like this guy really likes to show how useless NAT is. His "NAT pinning" demonstration is quite scary.
gesman 12y ago
I glad i use my old, trusty IBM keyboard :)
- codethulu 12y ago
  Those are vulnerable to other attack vectors. http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/publications/thesis/online/IM100855.pdf http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/publications/thesis/online/IM100855....
  - kevin_thibedeau 12y ago
    IBM made other dependable keyboards besides the model M. I have a stash of quiet KB-6323s to last the rest of my years.
edwintorok 12y ago
Does this apply to all bluetooth keyboards? Sounds like some public-key crypto could make it safe: embed some unique keys at manufacturing time and use some small crypto library (like tweetnacl) to communicate and have mutual authentication. For the paranoid there could be a way to update the keys so that not even the vendor can sniff the keystrokes. Isn't there a RFC for something similar?
- egeozcan 12y ago
  I'm curious if something like this could affect the battery life significantly.
  - bigiain 12y ago
    It's passive. The keyboard doesn't know it's being listened to.
    - egeozcan 12y ago
      No, I meant the preventive measures. Would encryption be such a big battery-hog that they preferred security through "obscurity" or did they just overlook the fact that those devices were broadcasting users' keystrokes to the open air? It's unjustifiable in either case but just wondering. (BTW I also don't get the down-vote. Did I say something unrelated?)
      - bigiain 12y ago
        Ahh right. The datasheet for the nRF24LE1 talks about it's AES encryption/decryption accelerator (section 15) and thermal noise random number generator (section 16), but the power consumption specs (section 26.1) talk about the rng using 0.5mA and don't even mention the AES hardware (even though they list other modules all the way down to 0.5uA). The RX/TX modules use over 10mA, so an order of magnitude more than the hardware RNG, and possibly 4 orders of magnitude more than the AES hardware. I doubt the encryption would even register in battery life - completely obscured by the power consumed by the TX/RX modules. http://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/content/download/2443/29442/file/nRF24LE1_Product_Specification_rev1_6.pdf http://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/content/download/2443/29442/fi...
stygiansonic 12y ago
I'm assuming it was intentional, but I love how the page is structured somewhat like a page from the NSA ANT catalog[0][1]. The device itself seems like it would fit right in to that list. 0. https://www.eff.org/files/2014/01/06/20131230-appelbaum-nsa_ant_catalog.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/2014/01/06/20131230-appelbaum-nsa_... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog
bithush 12y ago
This is a beautifully done hack. Using a legitimate USB charger. The GSM radio for 2G internet broadcast. The built in battery for short term unplugged continued sniffing. Trigger word SMS messages. Live streaming web portal. That is very, very cool. This is the kind of stealth monitoring device people just would never think to check and could easily be replaced without the user being any the wiser. This is a beautiful example of a real hack superbly executed. Bravo. Edit: Just realised this is the guy (or team?) behind EverCookie.
- tylersmith 12y ago
  He's done a number of (in)famous things. E.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samy_%28computer_worm%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samy_%28computer_worm%29
  - Someone1234 12y ago
    Even if they received no jail time, that sentence still seems disproportionately harsh. Heck most drunk drivers receive a lighter sentence and they're endangering human life.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - Xeoncross 12y ago
    This case still gets me. Showing some text on MySpace is a "felony" charge? > Felonies: Felonies are the most serious types of crimes... ...Felonies are usually crimes that are viewed severely by society, and include crimes such as murder, rape, burglary, kidnapping, or arson. However, felonies can also be punished in a range of ways so that the punishment matches the severity of the crime. - http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-law-basics/what-distinguishes-a-misdemeanor-from-a-felony.html#sthash.hDhwSBow.dpuf http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-law-basics/what-disting...
    - omgitstom 12y ago
      Some states view these types of crimes as crimes of 'moral turpitude' and it doesn't matter if it is a felony or misdemeanor. It will definitely effect your ability to get a security clearance or job in the security space.
spydum 12y ago
perhaps the team managing the centcom twitter account[1] should be checking their offices? :) [1] http://therightscoop.com/breaking-centcom-twitter-youtube-accounts-hacked-by-isis-group/ http://therightscoop.com/breaking-centcom-twitter-youtube-ac...
roozbeh18 12y ago
Sammy mentioned, he would tell us how to prevent this but he never did. I am guessing since Microsft keyboard emits the CD at all time and is prone to this attack, for now I should stop using it.
- DINKDINK 12y ago
  If you show how to break a system, don't you implicitly show the parts that are broken that need to be fixed? The entire protocol is so poor you should probably just not use the tech anymore. The cryptography method uses a key of 4 bytes and is reused constantly, that's pretty much reason alone to dump keyboards using that encryption scheme.
lgeek 12y ago
The added electronics just rest against the adapter's boards: http://samy.pl/keysweeper/testingsize.jpg http://samy.pl/keysweeper/testingsize.jpg. This looks quite unsafe because of reduced clearances. It has a chance of either exposing HV on the LV (USB power) side or shorting the various boards, potentially starting a fire. It's a pretty cool proof-of-concept, but I wouldn't connect anything to the USB port. These issues could be solved for deployment by potting or by using a custom smaller PCB integrating the various boards.
- comboy 12y ago
  You could just epoxy it, but I don't think it's meant to be production ready.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
mrb 12y ago
The most frustrating thing when reading about keyboard vendors implementing such insecure protocols is knowing that the nRF24LE1 chip Microsoft uses has all it needs for security: hardware accelerated support for AES, as well as a hardware random number generator [1]. Some comments here suggest using public/private crypto as a fix, but it would not even be necessary. During manufacturing they could simply generate a unique secret AES key for each keyboard/dongle pair, store it in the 1536-byte non-volatile area of the chips, have the hardware RNG on the keyboard generate the IV when a wireless session begins, and use AES in CTR mode. Heck you could even afford to reserve a few bytes in each packet to store the counter in plaintext for automatic resynchronization when packets are lost, since the nRF24 radios support big enough packets (32 bytes). There are absolutely zero technical reasons not to implement security. It does not significantly increase power consumption. It does not bloat the code that much. (I know all this because I have done a lot of work with the nRF24LE1. It is cheap: $4 for a fully assembled module on eBay [2]. It "supports" Bluetooth by bit-banging it [3]. And code for the builtin 8051 core can be compiled by the open source compiler sdcc. These are reasons why I selected this chip for my DIY home automation system.) In fact the nRF24 radios are so popular that the vast majority of non-Bluetooth wireless keyboards use them. And I guarantee you that even though they use different protocols, they are almost certainly just as insecure as these Microsoft keyboards. The only reason vendors do not implement secure protocols is because customers do not know or care about security. The very few vendors who do such as [4] sell keyboards for hundreds of dollars... there is again zero reasons why it would cost that much given that it could be done with a standard nRF24LE1 :-( [1] http://www.keil.com/dd/docs/datashts/nordic/nrf24le1_ds_v1_1.pdf http://www.keil.com/dd/docs/datashts/nordic/nrf24le1_ds_v1_1... [2] The $1 chip Sammy is talking about is another variant: the nRF24L01 which is just the bare radio without the 8051 core [3] http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=11.%20Bluetooth%20LE%20fakery http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=11.%20Bluetoot... [4] http://matias.ca/securepro/pc/ http://matias.ca/securepro/pc/ ($170!) Edit #1: a colleague of mine opened up the Matias Secure Pro keyboard and confirmed it uses an nRF24LE1. Edit #2: @cortesoft: The way I would support this "one dongle many devices" feature is by doing the key generation during pairing (sometimes done by pressing a small switch under the keyboard) instead of during manufacturing. The only window of attack would be if an active attacker was present during pairing and pretended to be the dongle. It would still be significantly more secure than current keyboard protocols.
DINKDINK 12y ago
As impressive as this hack was, I almost expected him to say that the LED was transmitting the keystroke data over LiFi ;)
eyeareque 12y ago
Off topic, but this is a great talk that Samy gave at blackhat in 2010: How I met your girlfriend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5xRRF5GfQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5xRRF5GfQs
curiously 12y ago
this is scary as hell! what about other wireless keyboards, especially the mac? I will switch to a mac keyboard if it's safe.
- j_k_s 12y ago
  And macs don't get viruses either! :)
- r00fus 12y ago
  Apple wireless keyboards all use Bluetooth, so if BT were broken it would likely be a bigger problem than a single vendor's issues.
deeviant 12y ago
Finally. My irrational hate for wireless keyboards is vindicated!
alllways 12y ago
Are there any good resources for learning more about wireless communication? Its something I have been wanting to learn for a while but compared to resources for programming, resources for learning about wireless communication are scarce. I am especially referring to embedded wireless, I would love to know how the nRF24 works.
MertsA 12y ago
So since the protocol contains basically no authentication other than the MAC address of the keyboard which the attacker can easily figure out, why isn't there already a key injection portion of this exploit ala wireless USBdriveby? I can totally see this being extended to wireless keyboard and mouse combos which would give you a great way to know if the user was at the computer and when it would be safe to compromise it without someone noticing.

462 points by mathetic 12y ago

Looking at the list of projects also done (by going to root of url) is quite impressive. http://samy.pl/ http://samy.pl/

codelitt 12y ago
Very much so. Seeing my user name populated in the bottom task bar was a little unnerving.
- jamiek88 12y ago
  Being marked 'you have nothing to worry about' was somehow equally as unnerving. I love that 'desktop as website' theme, gonna steal it.
kawsper 12y ago
It found my unique Imgur username. So I guess that is where he gets the username from.
- tomvangoethem 12y ago
  If you're curious on how he "finds out", check out his other video (Quickjack - Hacking Facebook likes with Clickjacking): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCkSVGhIEb4#t=217 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCkSVGhIEb4#t=217
leni536 12y ago
Oh, I do know pwnat. It could be quite useful. edit: It seems like this guy really likes to show how useless NAT is. His "NAT pinning" demonstration is quite scary.

gesman 12y ago

I glad i use my old, trusty IBM keyboard :)

codethulu 12y ago
Those are vulnerable to other attack vectors. http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/publications/thesis/online/IM100855.pdf http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/publications/thesis/online/IM100855....
- kevin_thibedeau 12y ago
  IBM made other dependable keyboards besides the model M. I have a stash of quiet KB-6323s to last the rest of my years.

edwintorok 12y ago

Does this apply to all bluetooth keyboards? Sounds like some public-key crypto could make it safe: embed some unique keys at manufacturing time and use some small crypto library (like tweetnacl) to communicate and have mutual authentication. For the paranoid there could be a way to update the keys so that not even the vendor can sniff the keystrokes. Isn't there a RFC for something similar?

egeozcan 12y ago
I'm curious if something like this could affect the battery life significantly.
- bigiain 12y ago
  It's passive. The keyboard doesn't know it's being listened to.
  - egeozcan 12y ago
    No, I meant the preventive measures. Would encryption be such a big battery-hog that they preferred security through "obscurity" or did they just overlook the fact that those devices were broadcasting users' keystrokes to the open air? It's unjustifiable in either case but just wondering. (BTW I also don't get the down-vote. Did I say something unrelated?)
    - bigiain 12y ago
      Ahh right. The datasheet for the nRF24LE1 talks about it's AES encryption/decryption accelerator (section 15) and thermal noise random number generator (section 16), but the power consumption specs (section 26.1) talk about the rng using 0.5mA and don't even mention the AES hardware (even though they list other modules all the way down to 0.5uA). The RX/TX modules use over 10mA, so an order of magnitude more than the hardware RNG, and possibly 4 orders of magnitude more than the AES hardware. I doubt the encryption would even register in battery life - completely obscured by the power consumed by the TX/RX modules. http://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/content/download/2443/29442/file/nRF24LE1_Product_Specification_rev1_6.pdf http://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/content/download/2443/29442/fi...

stygiansonic 12y ago

I'm assuming it was intentional, but I love how the page is structured somewhat like a page from the NSA ANT catalog[0][1]. The device itself seems like it would fit right in to that list. 0. https://www.eff.org/files/2014/01/06/20131230-appelbaum-nsa_ant_catalog.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/2014/01/06/20131230-appelbaum-nsa_... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog

bithush 12y ago

This is a beautifully done hack. Using a legitimate USB charger. The GSM radio for 2G internet broadcast. The built in battery for short term unplugged continued sniffing. Trigger word SMS messages. Live streaming web portal. That is very, very cool. This is the kind of stealth monitoring device people just would never think to check and could easily be replaced without the user being any the wiser. This is a beautiful example of a real hack superbly executed. Bravo. Edit: Just realised this is the guy (or team?) behind EverCookie.

tylersmith 12y ago
He's done a number of (in)famous things. E.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samy_%28computer_worm%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samy_%28computer_worm%29
- Someone1234 12y ago
  Even if they received no jail time, that sentence still seems disproportionately harsh. Heck most drunk drivers receive a lighter sentence and they're endangering human life.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- Xeoncross 12y ago
  This case still gets me. Showing some text on MySpace is a "felony" charge? > Felonies: Felonies are the most serious types of crimes... ...Felonies are usually crimes that are viewed severely by society, and include crimes such as murder, rape, burglary, kidnapping, or arson. However, felonies can also be punished in a range of ways so that the punishment matches the severity of the crime. - http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-law-basics/what-distinguishes-a-misdemeanor-from-a-felony.html#sthash.hDhwSBow.dpuf http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-law-basics/what-disting...
  - omgitstom 12y ago
    Some states view these types of crimes as crimes of 'moral turpitude' and it doesn't matter if it is a felony or misdemeanor. It will definitely effect your ability to get a security clearance or job in the security space.

spydum 12y ago

perhaps the team managing the centcom twitter account[1] should be checking their offices? :) [1] http://therightscoop.com/breaking-centcom-twitter-youtube-accounts-hacked-by-isis-group/ http://therightscoop.com/breaking-centcom-twitter-youtube-ac...

roozbeh18 12y ago

Sammy mentioned, he would tell us how to prevent this but he never did. I am guessing since Microsft keyboard emits the CD at all time and is prone to this attack, for now I should stop using it.

DINKDINK 12y ago
If you show how to break a system, don't you implicitly show the parts that are broken that need to be fixed? The entire protocol is so poor you should probably just not use the tech anymore. The cryptography method uses a key of 4 bytes and is reused constantly, that's pretty much reason alone to dump keyboards using that encryption scheme.

lgeek 12y ago

The added electronics just rest against the adapter's boards: http://samy.pl/keysweeper/testingsize.jpg http://samy.pl/keysweeper/testingsize.jpg. This looks quite unsafe because of reduced clearances. It has a chance of either exposing HV on the LV (USB power) side or shorting the various boards, potentially starting a fire. It's a pretty cool proof-of-concept, but I wouldn't connect anything to the USB port. These issues could be solved for deployment by potting or by using a custom smaller PCB integrating the various boards.

comboy 12y ago
You could just epoxy it, but I don't think it's meant to be production ready.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

mrb 12y ago

The most frustrating thing when reading about keyboard vendors implementing such insecure protocols is knowing that the nRF24LE1 chip Microsoft uses has all it needs for security: hardware accelerated support for AES, as well as a hardware random number generator [1]. Some comments here suggest using public/private crypto as a fix, but it would not even be necessary. During manufacturing they could simply generate a unique secret AES key for each keyboard/dongle pair, store it in the 1536-byte non-volatile area of the chips, have the hardware RNG on the keyboard generate the IV when a wireless session begins, and use AES in CTR mode. Heck you could even afford to reserve a few bytes in each packet to store the counter in plaintext for automatic resynchronization when packets are lost, since the nRF24 radios support big enough packets (32 bytes). There are absolutely zero technical reasons not to implement security. It does not significantly increase power consumption. It does not bloat the code that much. (I know all this because I have done a lot of work with the nRF24LE1. It is cheap: $4 for a fully assembled module on eBay [2]. It "supports" Bluetooth by bit-banging it [3]. And code for the builtin 8051 core can be compiled by the open source compiler sdcc. These are reasons why I selected this chip for my DIY home automation system.) In fact the nRF24 radios are so popular that the vast majority of non-Bluetooth wireless keyboards use them. And I guarantee you that even though they use different protocols, they are almost certainly just as insecure as these Microsoft keyboards. The only reason vendors do not implement secure protocols is because customers do not know or care about security. The very few vendors who do such as [4] sell keyboards for hundreds of dollars... there is again zero reasons why it would cost that much given that it could be done with a standard nRF24LE1 :-( [1] http://www.keil.com/dd/docs/datashts/nordic/nrf24le1_ds_v1_1.pdf http://www.keil.com/dd/docs/datashts/nordic/nrf24le1_ds_v1_1... [2] The $1 chip Sammy is talking about is another variant: the nRF24L01 which is just the bare radio without the 8051 core [3] http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=11.%20Bluetooth%20LE%20fakery http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=11.%20Bluetoot... [4] http://matias.ca/securepro/pc/ http://matias.ca/securepro/pc/ ($170!) Edit #1: a colleague of mine opened up the Matias Secure Pro keyboard and confirmed it uses an nRF24LE1. Edit #2: @cortesoft: The way I would support this "one dongle many devices" feature is by doing the key generation during pairing (sometimes done by pressing a small switch under the keyboard) instead of during manufacturing. The only window of attack would be if an active attacker was present during pairing and pretended to be the dongle. It would still be significantly more secure than current keyboard protocols.

DINKDINK 12y ago

As impressive as this hack was, I almost expected him to say that the LED was transmitting the keystroke data over LiFi ;)

eyeareque 12y ago

Off topic, but this is a great talk that Samy gave at blackhat in 2010: How I met your girlfriend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5xRRF5GfQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5xRRF5GfQs

curiously 12y ago

this is scary as hell! what about other wireless keyboards, especially the mac? I will switch to a mac keyboard if it's safe.

j_k_s 12y ago
And macs don't get viruses either! :)
r00fus 12y ago
Apple wireless keyboards all use Bluetooth, so if BT were broken it would likely be a bigger problem than a single vendor's issues.

deeviant 12y ago

Finally. My irrational hate for wireless keyboards is vindicated!

alllways 12y ago

Are there any good resources for learning more about wireless communication? Its something I have been wanting to learn for a while but compared to resources for programming, resources for learning about wireless communication are scarce. I am especially referring to embedded wireless, I would love to know how the nRF24 works.

MertsA 12y ago

So since the protocol contains basically no authentication other than the MAC address of the keyboard which the attacker can easily figure out, why isn't there already a key injection portion of this exploit ala wireless USBdriveby? I can totally see this being extended to wireless keyboard and mouse combos which would give you a great way to know if the user was at the computer and when it would be safe to compromise it without someone noticing.