Hacking is now possible through HDMI electromagnetic radiation

Published Aug 1, 2024

Hacking is now possible through HDMI electromagnetic radiation

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Hackers can now see what's on your screen just by reading invisible signals from your HDMI radiation. While this isn't a major concern for everyday users just yet, the future could be a different story. In this article, we'll dive into the details of this new threat.

Yet another AI threat

HDMI is a digital video and audio connection protocol that is commonly used to link televisions, hard disc recorders, game consoles, and personal computers to monitors. In the past, it was easier for hackers to see what was on a screen by detecting signals from analogue video cables. Modern digital cables like HDMI made this harder because their signals are more complex. However, a certain number of electromagnetic waves still leak out when transmitted through an HDMI cable.

Hacking through HDMI radiation

And now hackers can intercept this radiation leaking from the cable connecting your monitor and computer and use artificial intelligence to decode what’s displayed on your screen. By comparing the leaked signals with the original screen content, the AI learned to reconstruct the screen’s image.

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The AI can recreate text from the intercepted signals with about 70% accuracy, which is good enough for most people to understand. This means hackers could potentially see passwords, financial info, or private messages. The researchers tested their method by using software to recognize text from the images their AI model recovered. They then compared this text to what was originally on the screen. Their technique improved the accuracy of this type of HDMI spying by 60% compared to older methods.

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Now the hackers could simply use this technique by placing a device inside a building or using an antenna nearby to capture the leaked HDMI signals. This is already being used against the government and industrial facilities which is making them concerned, regular users don’t need to worry too much. However, if you are very security conscious, this could be a potential issue to watch out for.

Old concept with an "AI" tag

Well, the idea of hacking through HDMI radiation is not a whole new concept. This has been done before, not with the AI particularly, but using electromagnet using a display port interface at Cambridge University.

TEMPEST (Telecommunication Electronics Materials Protected from Emanating Spurious Transmission) is a set of rules and techniques by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and NATO which deals with these kinds of issues (spying on information systems by detecting unintentional signals, sounds, and vibrations that electronic devices give off). So, the rules were there already then the idea cannot be new, right? The difference between now and then is this time they have used "AI" for this purpose.