Invisible Finger: Practical Electromagnetic Interference Attack on Touchscreen-based Electronic Devices

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Shan, Haoqi, Zhang, Boyi, Zhan, Zihao, Sullivan, Dean, Wang, Shuo, Jin, Yier
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Shan, Haoqi
Zhang, Boyi
Zhan, Zihao
Sullivan, Dean
Wang, Shuo
Jin, Yier
author_facet Shan, Haoqi
Zhang, Boyi
Zhan, Zihao
Sullivan, Dean
Wang, Shuo
Jin, Yier
contents Touchscreen-based electronic devices such as smart phones and smart tablets are widely used in our daily life. While the security of electronic devices have been heavily investigated recently, the resilience of touchscreens against various attacks has yet to be thoroughly investigated. In this paper, for the first time, we show that touchscreen-based electronic devices are vulnerable to intentional electromagnetic interference (IEMI) attacks in a systematic way and how to conduct this attack in a practical way. Our contribution lies in not just demonstrating the attack, but also analyzing and quantifying the underlying mechanism allowing the novel IEMI attack on touchscreens in detail. We show how to calculate both the minimum amount of electric field and signal frequency required to induce touchscreen ghost touches. We further analyze our IEMI attack on real touchscreens with different magnitudes, frequencies, duration, and multitouch patterns. The mechanism of controlling the touchscreen-enabled electronic devices with IEMI signals is also elaborated. We design and evaluate an out-of-sight touchscreen locator and touch injection feedback mechanism to assist a practical IEMI attack. Our attack works directly on the touchscreen circuit regardless of the touchscreen scanning mechanism or operating system. Our attack can inject short-tap, long-press, and omni-directional gestures on touchscreens from a distance larger than the average thickness of common tabletops. Compared with the state-of-the-art touchscreen attack, ours can accurately inject different types of touch events without the need for sensing signal synchronization, which makes our attack more robust and practical. In addition, rather than showing a simple proof-of-concept attack, we present and demonstrate the first ready-to-use IEMI based touchscreen attack vector with end-to-end attack scenarios.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_02227
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Invisible Finger: Practical Electromagnetic Interference Attack on Touchscreen-based Electronic Devices
Shan, Haoqi
Zhang, Boyi
Zhan, Zihao
Sullivan, Dean
Wang, Shuo
Jin, Yier
Cryptography and Security
Touchscreen-based electronic devices such as smart phones and smart tablets are widely used in our daily life. While the security of electronic devices have been heavily investigated recently, the resilience of touchscreens against various attacks has yet to be thoroughly investigated. In this paper, for the first time, we show that touchscreen-based electronic devices are vulnerable to intentional electromagnetic interference (IEMI) attacks in a systematic way and how to conduct this attack in a practical way. Our contribution lies in not just demonstrating the attack, but also analyzing and quantifying the underlying mechanism allowing the novel IEMI attack on touchscreens in detail. We show how to calculate both the minimum amount of electric field and signal frequency required to induce touchscreen ghost touches. We further analyze our IEMI attack on real touchscreens with different magnitudes, frequencies, duration, and multitouch patterns. The mechanism of controlling the touchscreen-enabled electronic devices with IEMI signals is also elaborated. We design and evaluate an out-of-sight touchscreen locator and touch injection feedback mechanism to assist a practical IEMI attack. Our attack works directly on the touchscreen circuit regardless of the touchscreen scanning mechanism or operating system. Our attack can inject short-tap, long-press, and omni-directional gestures on touchscreens from a distance larger than the average thickness of common tabletops. Compared with the state-of-the-art touchscreen attack, ours can accurately inject different types of touch events without the need for sensing signal synchronization, which makes our attack more robust and practical. In addition, rather than showing a simple proof-of-concept attack, we present and demonstrate the first ready-to-use IEMI based touchscreen attack vector with end-to-end attack scenarios.
title Invisible Finger: Practical Electromagnetic Interference Attack on Touchscreen-based Electronic Devices
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.02227