Scientists demonstrate use of sensors to eavesdrop on phone calls remotely

Researchers have demonstrated a method to detect the vibrations of a mobile phone’s earpiece and decipher what the person on the other side of the call was saying with up to 83 per cent accuracy.

The team at Pennsylvania State University used an off-the-shelf automotive radar sensor and a novel processing approach to reveal this significant security concern.

“As technology becomes more reliable and robust over time, the misuse of such sensing technologies by adversaries becomes probable,” said Suryoday Basak, doctoral candidate at Penn State.

“Our demonstration of this kind of exploitation contributes to the pool of scientific literature that broadly says, ‘Hey! Automotive radars can be used to eavesdrop audio.