Once upon a time, a crafty little thing called the PC speaker lived in a land full of ones and zeros. You may remember it from the good ol' days when computers were as big as your living room, and it'd go "beep beep" to announce its presence. Well, guess what? These cute little buggers have now become the accomplices of hackers in their dastardly deeds!
A group of security researchers, who probably had too much time, discovered that the PC speaker is used to exfiltrate data from your computer. That's right, folks! Your trusty old friend, the PC speaker, is now the star of the show in the data leakage extravaganza.
Let's skip down memory lane to see how this all began. Back then, the PC speaker was the only way for computers to make a sound. It would beep and boop like R2-D2, giving users the 411 on what was happening in the digital realm. Fast forward to today, and we've got all sorts of fancy schmancy sound systems that have long replaced the humble PC speaker. But little did we know, the speaker has been sitting in the corner, plotting its revenge!
The researchers demonstrated that these speakers could emit sound at a frequency that's inaudible to humans but easy for the malware to pick up. The malware then translates this Morse code-like communication into your precious data, and voila! It's like a magical game of Chinese whispers that steals your secrets.
You might think, "But wait, my super-duper fancy computer doesn't even have a PC speaker!" Fear not, dear reader, for the researchers thought of that too! The researchers found a way to pull off the same shenanigans without a speaker with some clever coding tricks and some help from your graphics card.
But before running for the hills or smashing your PC, take a deep breath and relax. The chances of this method being used to steal your data are about as high as finding a unicorn in your backyard. It's a slow and cumbersome process that would take ages to transfer anything significant. Plus, it requires the hacker to be physically close to your computer, which is so 2005.
While the idea of your PC speaker playing a game of digital espionage is hilariously intriguing, it's not something you should lose sleep over. Instead, keep your antivirus software up-to-date, don't click on sketchy links, and give your PC speaker a stern talking-to... in case it gets any ideas.
Source:
https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/pc-speaker-data-exfiltration/47737/?utm_source=pocket_saves
