Is your iPhone a (sp)iPhone?

You get to work each morning, take out your phone and put it on your desk, but this very action could be turning your iPhone into a (sp)iPhone say researchers in America. Smartphone accelerometers are internal devices that detect when and how the phone is tilted, but they can also be used to sense keyboard vibrations and decipher complete sentences with up to 80% accuracy.

However, the research team from the Georgia Institute of Technology say that the process is not easy, and it’s very unlikely that anyone would use this method for obtaining your information.

“The way we see this attach working is that you, the phone’s owner, would request or be asked to download an innocuous-looking application, which doesn’t ask you for the use of any suspicious phone sensors,” said Henry Carter, study co-author. “Then the keyboard detection malware is turned on, and the next time you place your phone next to the keyboard and start typing, it starts listening.”

The technique works through probability and by detecting pairs of keystrokes rather than individual keys – which is too difficult to accomplish reliably. It models events in pairs and determines whether the keys were pressed on the left or right of the keyboard, close together or far apart. These are then compared against a preloaded dictionary where each word has been broken down along similar lines.

Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability are simple and straightforward: the study found an effective range of just three inches from the keyboard, so move the phone further from the keyboard, or leave it in bags or pockets.

Users shouldn’t be paranoid that hackers are tracking their keystrokes through their iPhones, said Patrick Traynor, assistant professor in the school of computer science.

“The likelihood of someone falling victim to an attack like this right now is pretty low,” he said. “This was really hard to do. But could people do it if they really wanted to? We think yes.”