Sara Rampazzi

Microphones that “hear” light; microprocessors that “tell” us secrets; self-driving cars that “see” fake objects; sensors that “feel” the wrong temperature. Our devices are under attack in new, increasingly sophisticated ways. Security researchers at CSE are exploring the limits of hardware and finding new, sobering vulnerabilities in our computers and homes.

The newly discovered microphone vulnerability allows attackers to remotely inject inaudible and invisible commands into voice assistants using light.

The researchers demonstrated that an adversary could remotely manipulate the temperature sensor measurements without tampering with the targeted system or triggering automatic temperature alarms.

Up to this point, no attacks had been discovered targeting a car’s LiDAR system—but a major new finding from researchers at the University of Michigan has demonstrated what that might look like.