Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

BAT: real-time inaudible sound capture with smartphones

  • Published:
Multimedia Tools and Applications Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

People tend to store important information on air-gapped devices and believe that the information is safe. But in recent years, more and more methods have been proposed to exfiltrate information from an air-gapped system. The methods of breaking through air-gapped can be divided into electromagnetic, thermal, acoustic and optical covert channels. Acoustic covert channels are studied by many researchers and no researchers have focused on real-time communication using inaudible sound. In this paper we propose BAT, a novel real-time bidirectional communication system. By using sounds, BAT enables unobtrusive speaker-microphone data communication without affecting the primary audio-hearing experience of users. We first design a real-time covert communication system using inaudible frequencies. It can be implemented on off-the-shelf smartphones. Compared with other methods, our method is completely using inaudible frequencies and real-time covert communication is realized. Experiments show that BAT can achieve high decoding rate and better imperceptibility in various environments. The designed program BAT is highly practical.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Chintalapudi K, Padmanabhan V, Venkatesan R (2013) Dhwani: Secure Peer-to-Peer Acoustic NFC

  2. Deshotels L (2014) Inaudible sound as a covert channel in mobile devices. In Usenix Conference on Offensive Technologies

  3. Guri M, Bykhovsky D, Elovici Y (2017) Air-jumper: Covert air-gap exfiltration/infiltration via security cameras & infrared (ir)

  4. Guri M, Kedma G, Kachlon A, Elovici Y (2014) Airhopper: Bridging the air-gap between isolated networks and mobile phones using radio frequencies. In International Conference on Malicious & Unwanted Software: the Americas

  5. Guri M, Monitz M, Elovici Y (2017) Usbee: Air-gap covert-channel via electromagnetic emission from usb. In Privacy, Security & Trust

  6. Guri M, Monitz M, Mirski Y, Elovici Y (2015) [ieee 2015 ieee 28th computer security foundations symposium (csf) - verona, italy (2015.7.13-2015.7.17)] 2015 ieee 28th computer security foundations symposium - bitwhisper: Covert signaling channel between air-gapped computers using thermal manipulations. In Computer Security Foundations Symposium

  7. Guri M, Solewicz Y, Daidakulov A, Elovici Y (2017) Acoustic data exfiltration from speakerless air-gapped computers via covert hard-drive noise (diskfiltration). In European Symposium on Research in Computer Security

  8. Guri M, Solewicz Y, Daidakulov A, Elovici Y (2018) Mosquito: Covert ultrasonic transmissions between two air-gapped computers using speaker-to-speaker communication

  9. Guri M, Zadov B, Atias E, Elovici Y (2017) Led-it-go: Leaking (a lot of) data from air-gapped computers via the (small) hard drive led

  10. Guri M, Zadov B, Daidakulov A, Elovici Y (2018) Odini : Escaping sensitive data from faraday-caged, air-gapped computers via magnetic fields

  11. Hanspach M, Goetz M (2014) On covert acoustical mesh networks in air. J Commun 8(11):221–231

    Google Scholar 

  12. ISO2262003 (2003) Acoustics-normal equal loudness level contours 33(6):802–803

  13. Kuhn MG, Anderson RJ (1998) Soft tempest: hidden data transmission using electromagnetic emanations

  14. Lee H, Kim TH, Choi JW, Choi S (2015) Chirp signal-based aerial acoustic communication for smart devices. In Computer Communications

  15. Li L, Lu Y, Yan X, Tan D (2019) Exfiltrating data through a screen-camera covert channel from air-gapped systems

  16. Madhavapeddy A, Sharp R, Scott D, Tse A (2005) Audio networking: the forgotten wireless technology. IEEE Pervasive Comput 4(3):55–60

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Mirsky Y, Guri M, Elovici Y (2017) Hvacker: Bridging the air-gap by attacking the air conditioning system

  18. Nittala AS, Yang XD, Bateman S, Sharlin E, Greenberg S (2015) Phoneear: Interactions for mobile devices that hear high-frequency sound-encoded data. In Acm Sigchi Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems

  19. Rra C (1978) Fundamentals of hearing: An introduction. Br J Ind Med 35(1):82–a

  20. Swanson MD, Zhu B, Tewfik AH, Boney L (1998) Robust audio watermarking using perceptual masking. Signal Process 66(3):337–55

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Wicker SB (1999) Reed-solomon codes and their applications

  22. Zhou M, Qian W, Kui R, Dimitrios K, Lu S, Yanjiao C (2018) Dolphin: Real-time hidden acoustic signal capture with smartphones. IEEE Trans Mob Comput 99:1

  23. Zhou Z, Zhang W, Yang Z, Yu N (2017) Exfiltration of data from air-gapped networks via unmodulated led status indicators

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

Funding

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation of China (Grant Number:61602491)

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National University of Defense Technology, Hefei, 230037, China

    Dingwei Tan, Yuliang Lu, Xuehu Yan & Longlong Li

Authors
  1. Dingwei Tan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yuliang Lu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Xuehu Yan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Longlong Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xuehu Yan.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Tan, D., Lu, Y., Yan, X. et al. BAT: real-time inaudible sound capture with smartphones. Multimed Tools Appl 80, 33313–33327 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-021-11372-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-021-11372-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation