VReaves: Eavesdropping on Virtual Reality App Identity and Activity via Electromagnetic Side Channels

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Sun, Wei, Fang, Minghong, Li, Mengyuan
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Sun, Wei
Fang, Minghong
Li, Mengyuan
author_facet Sun, Wei
Fang, Minghong
Li, Mengyuan
contents Virtual reality (VR) has recently proliferated significantly, consisting of headsets or head-mounted displays (HMDs) and hand controllers for an embodied and immersive experience. The VR device is usually embedded with different kinds of IoT sensors, such as cameras, microphones, communication sensors, etc. However, VR security has not been scrutinized from a physical hardware point of view, especially electromagnetic emanations (EM) that are automatically and unintentionally emitted from the VR headset. This paper presents VReaves, a system that can eavesdrop on the electromagnetic emanation side channel of a VR headset for VR app identification and activity recognition. To do so, we first characterize the electromagnetic emanations from the embedded IoT sensors (e.g., cameras and microphones) in the VR headset through a signal processing pipeline and further propose machine learning models to identify the VR app and recognize the VR app activities. Our experimental evaluation with commercial off-the-shelf VR devices demonstrates the efficiency of VR app identification and activity recognition via electromagnetic emanation side channel.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_17570
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle VReaves: Eavesdropping on Virtual Reality App Identity and Activity via Electromagnetic Side Channels
Sun, Wei
Fang, Minghong
Li, Mengyuan
Networking and Internet Architecture
Cryptography and Security
Human-Computer Interaction
Virtual reality (VR) has recently proliferated significantly, consisting of headsets or head-mounted displays (HMDs) and hand controllers for an embodied and immersive experience. The VR device is usually embedded with different kinds of IoT sensors, such as cameras, microphones, communication sensors, etc. However, VR security has not been scrutinized from a physical hardware point of view, especially electromagnetic emanations (EM) that are automatically and unintentionally emitted from the VR headset. This paper presents VReaves, a system that can eavesdrop on the electromagnetic emanation side channel of a VR headset for VR app identification and activity recognition. To do so, we first characterize the electromagnetic emanations from the embedded IoT sensors (e.g., cameras and microphones) in the VR headset through a signal processing pipeline and further propose machine learning models to identify the VR app and recognize the VR app activities. Our experimental evaluation with commercial off-the-shelf VR devices demonstrates the efficiency of VR app identification and activity recognition via electromagnetic emanation side channel.
title VReaves: Eavesdropping on Virtual Reality App Identity and Activity via Electromagnetic Side Channels
topic Networking and Internet Architecture
Cryptography and Security
Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.17570