You're not safe offline: Router LED lights can steal your data

no1yak · 20 Jun 2017

cereberus said:

Wow up 1000 bits/sec = 0.125 KB/s (or 1 KB/S if you have 8 LEDS). Hackers would die of old age before they had uploaded anything serious - LOL.

Hey, don't worry. Captain Kirk is in charge, your router is safe.Beam me up Scottie.

Josey Wales · 20 Jun 2017

I can turn off the lights on mine but no one can see it but me.

alkaufmann · 20 Jun 2017

My Netgear router allows me to turn them off so I can sleep in the dark and not worry what they are trying to say.

Borg 386 · 20 Jun 2017

alphanumeric said:

Wow, that's interesting. I just decoded my blinks and it just keeps saying "all your base are belong to us" over and over again?

Well, this is more proof of concept then anything. No, it's definitely not a practical way to steal data and has limitations, but you have to admit it's creative/curious avenue of attack that was tried out & was found to work. There's always someone working on an angle to steal data in various ways & heaven only knows what exploits we don't know about that are actively being used.

I myself am not worried about my router lights...unless the cat knows how to read binary (I better watch him from now on

)

alphanumeric · 20 Jun 2017

There are only 10 types of cats, those that know binary and those that don't. Sorry, couldn't resist.

margrave55 · 20 Jun 2017

Let's not get too excited. This only works when on a compromised router.

If a router can be compromised, there are much better ways to get the data out.

This idea is novel, but not practical.

sygnus21 · 21 Jun 2017

no1yak said:

It's OK, just cover your router in tin foil.

Tin foil huh :)

CountryBumkin · 22 Jun 2017

You need to swap out the LEDs for incandescent bulbs.