Android spyware listens to conversations

New spyware is hotly debated in Android security forums. It turns out that a very sensitive motion sensor is able to work as a microphone. Accordingly, unfamiliar applications that require access to this sensor should not be installed. Yes, this can lead to the inability of the program to work, but safety is paramount.

 

Android spyware listens to conversations

 

People have faced the problem of listening to calls on smartphones for a long time. It only affected applications that require access to the microphone. By restricting this access, the threat could be eliminated. However, the situation has changed a bit.

 

American researchers took up the study of the problem with a highly sensitive motion sensor. Scientists from the Universities of Texas (A&M), New Jersey, Dayton, Rutgers and Temple created the EarSpy app. This is a test program to demonstrate the possibility of recording conversations through a motion sensor.

For the test, smartphones from 2016-2019 were used. The choice fell on the OnePlus brand. We used OnePlus 7T and OnePlus 9 phones. Why this particular brand - apparently because of our own security. After all, Samsung or Apple can sue hundreds of millions of dollars for this. And the Chinese company will not be able to do anything, since there is every chance of losing the American market.

 

The result of testing the EarSpy program turned out to be very interesting:

 

• The gender of the caller is identified with 98% accuracy.
• It was possible to establish the identity of the interlocutor by voice with an accuracy of 91%.
• The transcript of the conversation (English) had an accuracy of up to 41%.

Given the specifics of the English (American) language, where many words are abbreviated, the low accuracy is understandable. But if you take richer languages ​​with a clear pronunciation of letters, then the accuracy will increase significantly. For example, German, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Mongolian - definitely, people who speak these ancient languages ​​have something to worry about.