this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024
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[–] catfish@lemmy.ml 64 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Perhaps worth pointing out that the attacks require the attacker to position a piece of hardware between the Qi charger and the power source.

[–] tourist@lemmy.world 53 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Is that piece of hardware a bic lighter

[–] jerrythegenius@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago
[–] gravitywell@sh.itjust.works 25 points 8 months ago (2 children)

According to the researchers, "A charger can be manipulated to control voice assistants via inaudible voice commands, damage devices being charged through overcharging or overheating, and bypass Qi-standard specified foreign-object-detection mechanism to damage valuable items exposed to intense magnetic fields."

So if someone swaps your Qi charger for a malicious one they can ruin your phone (or some other device it's supposed to detect as not a phone ?) and maybe execute arbitrary voice commands... 🥱

[–] michael_palmer@lemmy.sdf.org 52 points 8 months ago

Malicious charger:

[–] tias@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I don't really get how they consider this a meaningful attack vector at all. Of course I can set the phone on fire if I can replace the charger - that's pretty much always going to be true and there's no reasonable way to fix it. The only possible use I see is to do it when someone is not intentionally charging their phone, e.g. holding a malicious charger close enough when they have the phone in their pocket.

[–] anachronist@midwest.social 1 points 8 months ago

Well now all we need is internet connected chargers with dodgy security...

[–] M500@lemmy.ml 20 points 8 months ago

Talk about a burner phone 😎☀️ Aaaaaeeeoooowwww

[–] DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If feel this is (unintentionally) stretching the use of the word cyberattack. Rightly or wrongly, most people consider a cyberattack a form of hacking/attack that's executed via a network or the internet.

I know its true definition any form of attack against data, network, or computing device (including smartphones), but this headline could easily lead people to think their phones could be set on fire by some anonymous l337 hAx0r over the internet.

While technically true, it requires physical exploit first.

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 3 points 8 months ago

Anyway it isn't a good idea to use a cheap charger with unknown brand, or one which isn't the own one at home.

[–] Midnitte@beehaw.org 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A charger can be manipulated to control voice assistants via inaudible voice commands...

This seems like the scarier attack, to be honest...

Though, surely there's filtering that can be performed to prevent that as an attack vector

[–] moosetwin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 8 months ago

this is unrelated but that is a really nice diagram

[–] jmbreuer@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago

So... Considering necessary access, it's a quarter step above "cooking a phone in a microwave oven might catch it on fire", IMO.

[–] firefly@neon.nightbulb.net -1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Let's pray they don't find a way to detonate the batteries!

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] chahk@beehaw.org 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Also Samsung Note 7 was da bomb!

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 3 points 8 months ago

It is the result of, to make the phone thinner, putting a battery that is too thin for the necessary power and therefore it gets too hot. It happens when the design is governed by the commercial demands of managers rather than those of technicians.