New Attack Uses Graphics Libraries to Intercept Keystrokes

In a new paper entitled “Unveiling your keystrokes: A Cache-based Side-channel Attack on Graphics Libraries,” academics from the University of California, Riverside, Virginia Tech, and the US Army Research Lab detailed how they were able to determine user key presses just by observing data leaks in how a CPU computes code from standard graphics libraries.

 

The researchers said that this new side-channel attack variation focuses on the processor’s shared memory where graphics libraries handle rendering the operating system user interface (UI). It was pointed out that while keyloggers can do the same thing, this new attack does not need admin/root or other special privileges to work.

 

Source: ZDNet