Abstract
Universal Serial Bus (USB) has become the dominant Plug & Play interface for personal computers and continues to grow. Any digital communication source emits secondary or unwanted emissions, called compromising emanations, as they can be received and used to reconstruct the original transmitted information, thereby compromising the transmitted messages. This paper presents a number of experimental results regarding the USB communication between a personal computer and a USB memory device (USB bulk transfer) that has been performed in a specialized laboratory, and illustrates the capability of restoring information transmitted at bit level only from receiving the compromising radiation emitted by this communications bus. Comparative results for a shielded and unshielded device will also be illustrated. Finally, some TEMPEST protection methods are identified and presented against leakage of information through the compromising radiation of USB communication.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
The Electromagnetic Compatibility Regulations 2016[https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi /2016/1091/pdfs/uksi_20161091_en.pdf], accessed on June 15, 2018
NATO Standard (2009) SDIP-27/1: NATO TEMPEST Requirements and Evaluation Procedures (NATO CONFIDENTIAL). NATO Military Committee Communication and Information Systems Security and Evaluation Agency (SECAN).
EU Standard (2013) IASG 07–03: Information assurance security guidelines on EU TEMPEST requirements and evaluation procedures (EU CONFIDENTIAL). General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union (GSC).
Nowosielski, L., & Wnuk, M. (2014). Compromising Emanations from USB 2 Interface. PIERS Proceedings, Guangzhou, China, August 25–28, 2014
Guri, M., Monitz, M., & Elovici, Y. (2016). USBee: Air-gap covert-channel via electromagnetic emission from USB. 14th Annual Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust (PST), Auckland, New Zealand, 12–14 December, 2016
Przesmycki, R., & Nowosielski, L. (2016). USB 3.0 interface in the process of electromagnetic infiltration. Progress in Electromagnetic Research Symposium (PIERS), Shanghai, China, 8–11 August, 2016
Zhang, C., Zhang, H., Luo, J., & Du, Y. (2017). TEMPEST in USB. IEEE 5th International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC-Beijing), Beijing, China, 28–31 October, 2017
Yang, Q., Gasti, P., Zhou, G., Farajidavar, A., & Balagani, K. (2016). On inferring browsing activity on smartphones via USB power analysis side-channel. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 12(5), 1056–1066.
Boitan, A., Bărtușică, R., Halunga, S., Popescu, M., & Ionuță, I. (2017). Compromising Electromagnetic Emanations of Wired USB Keyboards. International Conference on Future Access Enablers of Ubiquitous and Intelligent Infrastructures 2017, Bucharest, pp. 39–44.
Sokolov, R., Abdullin, R., & Dolmatov D. (2016). Development of synchronization system for signal reception and recovery from USB-keyboard compromising emanations. IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering, Applications and Manufacturing (ICIEAM), pp. 1–4.
Rohde & Schwarz AM524 active antenna system. Retrieved June 15, 2018, from https://cdn.rohde-schwarz.com/pws/dl_downloads/dl_common_library/dl_brochures_and_datasheets/pdf_1/AM524_cat_2015_48-49.pdf.
Rohde & Schwarz FSET22 receiver. Retrieved June 15, 2018, from https://docplayer.net/3509140-Test-receiver-r-s-fset7-r-s-fset22-rf-preselector-r-s-fset-z2-r-s-fset-z22-measurement-and-evaluation-of-compromising-emissions.html.
MIL-STD 461F. Requirements for the Control of Electromagnetic Interference Characteristics of Subsystems and Equipement. Retrieved June 15, 2018, from https://snebulos.mit.edu/projects/reference/MIL-STD/MIL-STD-461F.pdf.
Universal Serial Bus Specification-USB 2.0. Retrieved April 27, 2000, from https://www.usb.org/developers. /docs/usb20_docs/#usb20spec/usb_20.pdf.
Tektronix TPP1000 Passive Probe specifications. Retrieved June 15, 2018, from https://download.tek.com/manual/TPP1000-1-GHz-10X-Passive-Probe-Ins.pdf.
Tektronix Differential Probe TDP3500 Specifications. Retrieved June 15, 2018, from https://www.tek.com/sites/default/files/media/media/resources/TDP1500-TDP3500-Differential-Probes-Datasheet-51W205657.pdf.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by contract no. 5Sol/2017 within PNCDI III, Integrated Software Platform for Mobile Malware Analysis (ToR-SIM).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Boitan, A., Halunga, S., Bîndar, V. et al. Compromising Electromagnetic Emanations of USB Mass Storage Devices. Wireless Pers Commun 126, 97–122 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-020-07329-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-020-07329-8