‘Surfing attack’ hacks Siri, Google with ultrasonic waves
Researchers use ultrasound waves vibrating through tables to access cellphones
https://source.wustl.edu/2020/02/surfing-attack-hacks-siri-google-with-ultrasonic-waves/


SurfingAttack: Interactive Hidden Attack on Voice Assistants Using Ultrasonic 
Guided Waves
https://surfingattack.github.io/papers/NDSS-surfingattack.pdf

Abstract—With recent advances in artificial intelligence and natural language 
processing, voice has become a primary method for human-computer interaction. 
It has enabled game-changing new technologies in both commercial sectors and 
military sectors, such as Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, and voice-controlled 
naval warships. Recently, researchers have demonstrated that these voice 
assistant systems are susceptible to signal injection at the inaudible 
frequencies. To date, most of the existing works focus primarily on delivering 
a single command via line-of-sight ultrasound speaker or extending the range of 
this attack via speaker array. However, besides air, sound waves also propagate 
through other materials where vibration is possible. In this work, we aim to 
understand the characteristics of this new genre of attack in the context of 
different transmission media. Furthermore, by leveraging the unique properties 
of acoustic transmission in solid materials, we design a new attack called 
SurfingAttack that would enable multiple rounds of interactions between the 
voice-controlled device and the attacker over a longer distance and without the 
need to be in line-of-sight. By completing the interaction loop of inaudible 
sound attack, SurfingAttack enables new attack scenarios, such as hijacking a 
mobile Short Message Service (SMS) passcode, making ghost fraud calls without 
owners’ knowledge, etc. To accomplish SurfingAttack, we have solved several 
major challenges. First, the signal has been specially designed to allow 
omni-directional transmission for performing effective attacks over a solid 
medium. Second, the new attack enables multi-round interaction without alerting 
the legitimate user at the scene, which is challenging since the device is 
designed to interact with users in physical proximity rather than sensors. To 
mitigate this newly discovered threat, we also provide discussions and 
experimental results on potential countermeasures to defend against this new 
threat.

https://surfingattack.github.io/papers/NDSS-surfingattack.pdf


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