Good Vibrations

Cybersecurity continues to be a major area of discussion, research, and development in our ever-technologizing world. Given the multitude of data breaches of corporations, governments, and personal citizens, it is no secret that hackers can get their hands on much of the data that gets transmitted and stored throughout the world. However, computer scientists and electrical engineers at the University of Washington have developed a system that utilizes your body to physically transmit sensitive data from one device to another, circumventing the need to expose that data to penetrable air waves.

When you send passwords or other information over airbone radio waves such as Wifi or Bluetooth, that data can be eavesdropped on by hackers who are able to crack the encryption.  As a result, the researchers at University of Washington have developed a way to securely send passwords through the human body utilizing harmless, low-frequency transmissions generated by fingerprint scanners available on a number of consumer devices, like the iPhone.

The system takes advantage of the already fine-tuned capabilities of these on-board scanners, but instead of having them just read input, the system uses the sound waves generated by the scanner to create corresponding output. "Fingerprint sensors have so far been used as an input device. What is cool is that we've shown for the first time that fingerprint sensors can be re-purposed to send out information that is confined to the body," said senior author Shyam Gollakota.  The tests used 10 differently sized people and numerous devices including an iPhone and a Lenovo laptop to successfully transmit the data through the human body and unlock a smartlock on a door.

The process requires a sequence of finger scans to encode and transmit data.  Performing a finger scan represents a 1-bit of data and not performing the scan correlates to a 0-bit.  After the data is entered on a smartphone and ready to be transmitted, it can securely travel through your body through the fingerprint scanner to a receiver embedded in another device that will then confirm your identity.  This method can be useful for securely confirming your identity to medical devices such as glucose monitors or insulin pumps, where confirming the patients identity before functioning is crucial.

References & Pictures:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160927134838.html

http://null-byte.wonderhowto.com/how-to/advice-from-a-hacker/