Sound Virus & Malware created by German Research Team

A team of German researchers have successfully tested, albeit in loose way, a malware that allows computers to communicates without need of a network. The only requirements are a microphone and speakers and the sounds that they create should create the malware by way of harnessing the potentials of air gaps, the capturing and hopping of signals creating an acoustical networking between machines. The only consolation for now is the transmitted rate is limited to 25 bits per second, or just a fraction of any ordinary and commonly-used network such as Wifi or Ethernet.

There’s no cause for alarm since the team is arming the malware with instructions that limit the type of data to be transmitted. Countermeasures against the malware include turning off the sound-connected devices or their functionalities, by installing a filtering mechanism that slows down or eliminates the use of high-frequency sounds whether inaudible or not, and by installing a detection guard mechanism that detects audio intrusion. No actual blueprint or design was presented by the team except that its findings were already incorporate in a journal article.

The findings were based on the actual infection detected by a security researcher involving a malware that jump air gaps with the use of transmissions that were high-frequency in nature. The small bandwidth produced or carried on by the malware is insignificant enough as to wreak havoc on any system or network for now.