@inproceedings{3d2dc6abd02543a6a6657292e833c4b0,
title = "USBee: Air-gap covert-channel via electromagnetic emission from USB",
abstract = "In recent years researchers have demonstrated how attackers could use USB connectors implanted with RF transmitters to exfiltrate data from secure, and even air-gapped, computers (e.g., COTTONMOUTH in the leaked NSA ANT catalog). Such methods require a hardware modification of the USB plug or device, in which a dedicated RF transmitter is embedded. In this paper we present 'USBee,' a software that can utilize an unmodified USB device connected to a computer as a RF transmitter. We demonstrate how a software can intentionally generate controlled electromagnetic emissions from the data bus of a USB connector. We also show that the emitted RF signals can be controlled and modulated with arbitrary binary data. We implement a prototype of USBee, and discuss its design and implementation details including signal generation and modulation. We evaluate the transmitter by building a receiver and demodulator using GNU Radio. Our evaluation shows that USBee can be used for transmitting binary data to a nearby receiver at a bandwidth of 20 to 80 BPS (bytes per second).",
keywords = "Air-gap, USB, covert channel, exfiltration, malware",
author = "Mordechai Guri and Matan Monitz and Yuval Elovici",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2016 IEEE.; 14th Annual Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust, PST 2016 ; Conference date: 12-12-2016 Through 14-12-2016",
year = "2016",
month = jan,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1109/PST.2016.7906972",
language = "English",
series = "2016 14th Annual Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust, PST 2016",
publisher = "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers",
pages = "264--268",
booktitle = "2016 14th Annual Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust, PST 2016",
address = "United States",
}