{"id":93333,"date":"2017-08-30T08:38:41","date_gmt":"2017-08-30T08:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/en\/?p=93333"},"modified":"2025-07-01T23:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T06:48:10","slug":"heres-how-others-can-spy-on-you-if-you-type-while-talking-on-skype-or-whatsapp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/heres-how-others-can-spy-on-you-if-you-type-while-talking-on-skype-or-whatsapp\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s how others can spy on you if you type while talking on Skype or WhatsApp"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s possible to spy on users who type while they make voice or video calls using apps like <\/span>Skype, WhatsApp, Hangouts or Viber. <\/b>At least that\u2019s what a group of researchers told us at Black Hat USA 2017, an event that is dedicated to security and hacking.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMany of us talk on Skype, Hangouts, WhatsApp, or Viber while using the computer for something else,\u201d explained Kaspersky during their\u00a0conference summary. \u201cYou already know it\u2019s not very polite, but it can be dangerous as well.<\/span> Click, click, click…the sound of typing on a physical computer keyboard is rather recognizable. <\/b>Your conversation partner knows you may be chatting or doing something else while conversing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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It turns out that machine-learning software can gradually recognize the specific keys you\u2019re pressing. <\/span>Almost every keyboard has a specific sound for each key,<\/b> which means that if somebody records you typing, over time he\/she can find out what you\u2019ve pressed and consequently know what you\u2019ve written.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt the Black Hat hacking conference in Las Vegas, we saw a presentation on how to make it happen. According to the researchers, even after the sound has undergone conversions during online transmission, the recordings of key clicks retain sufficient information to<\/span> feed to a machine-learning system and get back the five most probable key presses.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Machine-learning software can <\/span>fine<\/b> tune this even further if it knows the keyboard layout<\/b> and the language the victim has used.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe experts claim that this technology might be used even to steal passwords,<\/b> although that sounds a bit far-fetched,\u201d says Kaspersky. \u201cPasswords are too short and do not consist of real words most of the time. At least, we hope they don\u2019t.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

During the investigation, researchers took <\/span>five volunteers and had them type on 3 different laptops. <\/b>They recorded their typing with\u00a0the audio (under\u00a0three variations: plain recording, Skype recording and Hangouts recording) and then tried to figure out what they had written.<\/span><\/p>\n

The software researchers used for the test correctly determined the five possible keys the volunteer had\u00a0pressed at each\u00a0moment <\/span>90% of the time<\/b>, across all three methods of recording. It correctly\u00a0determined the exact key that had been pressed between 70-80% of the time, depending on the type of recording.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"skype-and-type-2add\"<\/p>\n

In this way, researchers concluded that we should be careful when typing while on\u00a0a call. If somebody<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0manages to intercept our conversation<\/b>, record our typing and use the right software, our privacy could be ruined.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, this situation isn\u2019t exactly commonplace. At the presentation, researchers used scaremongering to get the public\u2019s attention. That\u2019s why <\/span>I\u2019m sticking to Kaspersky\u2019s more moderate conclusions:<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cThe threat of \u2018input interception\u2019 over Skype does not look too serious, but it\u2019s worth knowing about, especially<\/span> if you sometimes deal with confidential information.<\/b>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Here Kaspersky says that it\u2019s possible that this type of thing could occur with <\/span>people who work with private information<\/b>; they could be spied on with the method of recording their typing and later figuring out the keys they pressed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd let\u2019s face it, <\/span>typing during conversations is not very courteous<\/b>; hence, avoiding that kind of multitasking will both protect your privacy and show respect for your conversation partner. However, if you find yourself in a middle of an especially long and tiresome conference call, observe the golden rule: Anyone who is not speaking should mute his or her microphone until it\u2019s time to talk.<\/strong>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source: <\/span>Kaspersky\u2019s blog<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s possible to spy on users who type while they make voice or video calls using apps like Skype, WhatsApp, Hangouts or Viber. At least that\u2019s what a group of researchers told us at Black Hat USA 2017, an event that is dedicated to security and hacking. \u201cMany of us talk on Skype, Hangouts, WhatsApp, … Continue reading “Here\u2019s how others can spy on you if you type while talking on Skype or WhatsApp”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2057,"featured_media":93365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[2441],"tags":[2559],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-93333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-to","tag-app-subdomain-redirectionskype"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2057"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328613,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93333\/revisions\/328613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93333"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=93333"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=93333"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=93333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}