ICS News Archive

How hackers can steal your password with an infrared photo of your keyboard

Researchers at University of California Irvine have demonstrated the ability to recover passwords from the thermal residue of computer keyboards, in a recently published paper. The attack type, called "Thermanator," was tested using a commodity-level FLIR SC620 infrared camera, and four standard PC keyboards. The researchers indicate that "entire sets of key-presses can be recovered by non-expert users as late as 30 seconds after initial password entry," while partial sets can still be viable to recover one minute after entry.

Read the full story at TechRepublic.