Researchers from George Mason University have revealed a new threat regarding conversations eavesdropping. This new threat is relied on a major idea, where attackers or spies use security “bugs†in operating systems in order to monitor whatever conversation comes on their way. This new technique extends beyond traditional eavesdropping, where an attacker would place a bedbug into the victim’s device and use it as a transmitter for its conversations. As researchers Ryan Farley and Xinyuan Wang describe, this new approach includes the sending of a spyware into the victim’s mobile device (laptops, PDAs, smartphones etc.), through remote connection and the compromisation of the microphone’s software, which is usually embedded in such devices, in order to monitor the conversations. This new attack targets individuals (such as an executive or a spouse) and doesn’t affect directly a whole group. Experiments which were conducted by the researchers on Windows XP and Mac OS laptops directed the spyware to join an Internet Relay Chat channel so they could remotely enable and disable each laptop's microphone, streaming real-time conversations. The same thing, they said, could be done on almost any smartphone. This incident could enable a person to listen in on interactions via a nearby smartphone or laptop. Finally, researchers warned that this threat is becoming more and more dangerous, as the use of internet through mobile devices increases. Just think what the consequences would be if an attacker could compromise an executive’s laptop or a police officer’s smartphone. Source: Trust-IT