Firstly, Eve needs to get a life.
Although the scenario is certainly plausible, the range must quite close
(I believe) in order to capture those radio waves, something like 6'
maybe. I would tend to think it's a lot easier to purchase a hardware
keystroke logger and drop it on the back of Alice's PC where it would
not be noticed as opposed to coming in with a laptop with some big dish
antennae on it.
Plausible - certainly, easy to pull off without getting caught - not so
easy.
Required expertise - I have no idea.
jmb
-----Original Message-----
From: Badger, Jared [mailto:Jared.Badger@acs-inc.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 6:13 PM
To: security-basics@securityfocus.com
Subject: Wireless Keyboard Security
Hello All,
I was wondering if anybody out there has researched security of wireless
keyboards. Although I'm sure many people have very interesting
opinions, what I need is solid technical information.
SCENARIO:
A sneaky eavesdropper, Eve, would like to find out some gossip on her
neighbor, Alice. Eve knows that Alice uses Yahoo for her email, and
would just love to be able to log in to Alice's Yahoo mail account. But
she doesn't know Alice's password. But luck, it seems, may be in Eve's
corner, as Alice has recently installed a snazzy new wireless
keyboard/mouse combo on her home computer. Eve, using her formidable
knowledge of radio and electronics, sets up an antenna to pick up
keyboard transmissions from Alice's house. After some persistence, Eve's
laptop records a username, alice@yahoo.com and a password, "opensesame".
Eve, ecstatic, logs on to Yahoo with the captured password and reads
Alice's email, discovering lots of juicy secrets.
Although this Alice/Eve scenario is fictional, it seems plausible. For a
true story, see:
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,108712,00.asp
My job involves reviewing computer security at a bank, and I was very
surprised to see that nearly all of the computers at one of my branches
are using these wireless mouse/keyboard combos. It seems like this could
be a potentially serious security risk, so I would like to do some
research on this topic. If these manufacturers have incorporated strong
security measures, then I would like to know what they are. Or if not,
then it would be better to know than not to know so as to take
appropriate precautions. (see the above PCWorld story. Note that only
4000 combinations are used, trivial for a computer to crack) Of
particular interest to me are:
1. How possible/easy/difficult is it to eavesdrop and capture keystrokes
from a wireless keyboard using passive means only? What
equipment/expertise does this require? (I am thinking it would probably
take at least a spectrum analyzer, receiver, a laptop, and some custom
software) What about taking the keyboard apart and reverse engineering
it?
2. How easy/difficult would it be to take control of a computer without
having physical access to the keyboard at the console? What
equipment/expertise would this require? (Probably at least the same as
above, plus a transmitter)
One example of a wireless keyboard/mouse combo is displayed here:
http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/mouseandkeyboard/productdetails.aspx?p
id=0
14
By entering the following FCC ID's into the FCC website, you can get
quite a bit of interesting information.
FCC ID's: C3KKB9 (keyboard), C3K1008 (mouse)
https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/cf/eas/reports/GenericSearch.cfm
There are many docs, including photos and lab tests, on the associated
pages. For example, FCC docs show that this particular keyboard
transmits on a frequency of 27.095 - 27.195 MHz. From the internal
photos, it doesn't seem there are enough electronics to perform advanced
encryption.
Certainly somebody knows how to do this. Has anybody tried? Been
successful? Failed? Any information on common manufacturers (Logitech,
Microsoft, Kensington, etc.), commonly used encryption/decryption,
frequencies, encoding, signal power and range, etc. would be most
appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Jared Badger, CISSP
