Every day we get to know about a different hack and every hack has its own dependencies and capabilities.

Now, this is crazy. Security researchers have discovered a new hack “Radio Wave Hack” for the smartphones which allows the hacker to make calls, sending text, playing music, browsing to the malicious site and much more on the Android and iOS devices with the help of their personal assistant i.e. Siri and Google Now, the crazy part of this Radio Wave Hack is, hacker can do all this without speaking anything to Siri or Google Now.

Radio Wave Hack is discovered by  a team of security researchers from French Government Agency ANSSI, they implemented a hack in which a hacker can control the Apple’s Siri and Android’s Google Now remotely and silently just by transmitting radio signals to the phone from 16 feet away.

But, this hack only works when the headphones are plugged in the phone, Headphones here works as the antenna.

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How the Radio Wave Hack Works?

It seems to be an interesting technique but you need something called radio transmitter to implement Radio Wave Hack. Also an iPhone or Android phone with headphones plugged in.

If a hacker is having the radio transmitter then, all he needs to do is sending radio waves. This radio transmitter sends radio waves which silently trigger voice commands on any iPhone or Android Phone that has Siri or Google Now enabled. Headphones here act as antenna which allows the hacker to befool the Siri or Google into believing that the voice is coming from the user’s headphone.

Doing this leaves the hacker with access of the phone. Hacker can now access everything in the phone of which Siri or Google Now is capable of such as:

  • Making Calls
  • Send Text message
  • Browsing malicious Site
  • Playing Audio and Video files.

Vincent Strubel, the Director of research Group of ANSSI told wired “You could imagine a bar or an airport where there are lots of people, Sending out some electromagnetic waves could cause many smartphones to call a paid number and generate cash.”

If we talk about the restrictions of Radio Wave Hack, the need of headphones as Antenna is one of them, and it also needs the personal Assistant enabled from the lock screen.

The distance from which it can be implemented i.e. 16 feet is also a restriction of Radio Wave Hack.

Have something to add on Radio Wave Hack ? Please add in comments.

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