What Lies Ahead

• Author: Jason Tashea
• Pages: 31-33

DECEMBER 2018 ABA JOURNAL || 31

SPECIAL EDITION

||

Business of Law

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY SARA WADFORD/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM, COURTESY OF AMIT SHALL

What Lies Ahead

What does emerging

technology like AI and

blockchain—as well as

regulations like GDPR—

mean for cybersecurity?

By Jason Tashea

It’s possible that someone may be watching your scre en—by listening to it.

A recent study from cyb ersecurity analys ts at the universities of Michigan,

Pennsylvania and Tel Aviv found that LCD scr eens “leak” a frequency that c an

be processed by ar tifi cial intel ligence to provide a hacker insight into what’s

on a screen.

“Displays are built to show v isuals, not emit sound,” says Roei Schuster, a

PhD candidate at Tel Aviv University and a co -author of the study with

doctoral cand idates Daniel Genkin, Er an Tromer and Mihir Pattani.

Yet the team’s study shows that’s not the case.

The researchers were able to c ollect the noise through either a

built-in or nea rby microphone or remotely over Go ogle Hangouts,

for example. Then they ran the audio t hrough a neural network—a

type of AI—to deter mine on-screen keystrokes or uncover whic h

Alexa top 10 website the user w as visiting.

The researchers were a lso able to accurately determi ne a

majority of a list of 100 English word s, albeit in an ideal

research set ting where letters were all caps and bla ck on a

white background . Seventy-two of the words “appeared in

Paper co-authors Roe i Schuster

(left), Daniel Genk in (rear) and

Eran Tromer (right) .