Re: Wireless mouse basestation transmitting wired keystrokes ?

I have never seen this happen I just hooked up a unknown microsoft
model and typed on my keyboard and there was no transmission from the
RF (i have equipment to watch this)

Unless in line I have never seen a OS that would take a keyboard imput
from PS2/USB and spit it back out to another device. Dont mean someone
could but unlikely.

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 12:03 PM, <krymson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Chad, I was thinking the same thing. But after a while, I wonder...


BASE ------> wireless mouse

STATION ---> wireless keyboard (not present)

-----------> wired keyboard


I guess the question is whether the base station is smart enough to turn off the wireless transmit if no wireless keyboard is present. Or whether wired keyboard inputs (key press -> system) is repeated on the wireless port (not sure why it would need to be). But, while it doesn't make sense to me, I *could* envision that a simple, dumb base station could do exactly as described. Few consumer products are vetted as well as we'd like to think!


Sergio: If the person you talked to is still available, definitely ask him for his source for that info.


Sounds like an excellent research opportunity.



<- snip ->

On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 04:24:26PM -0500, Sergio Castro wrote:

All sorts of electromagnetic emissions can be intercepted straight from

devices.

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TEMPEST


While true, that doesn't really answer the question. The question was

whether the base unit for a wireless mouse/keyboard combination would

transmit keystrokes from a "wired" keyboard.


The answer might be "it depends", but unless there's something actually

wrong with the way the base unit's controlling software was designed,

this probably doesn't actually happen. No reason for a wireless keyboard

base unit to broadcast keystroke data occurs to me at all, other than

design flaws. To be certain, however, I guess you'd have to use an RF

receiver (assuming it's an RF wireless base unit) to capture any

emissions and examine them for the presence of keystroke data.


I tend to think it would be more likely that using a wireless keyboard

might involve broadcast of (unencrypted) keystroke data, since wireless

peripheral device manufacturers probably don't put nearly enough effort

into making sure your system is secure. It is for this reason that,

while I may use a wireless mouse with a system where I'll be entering

passwords, I will *not* use a wireless keyboard with such a system at

this time.





OP is below:


-----Mensaje original-----

De: listbounce (at) securityfocus (dot) com [email concealed] [mailto:listbounce (at) securityfocus (dot) com [email concealed]] En

nombre de cleo_str8 (at) hotmail (dot) com [email concealed]

Enviado el: Lunes, 26 de Mayo de 2008 03:25 p.m.

Para: security-basics (at) securityfocus (dot) com [email concealed]

Asunto: Wireless mouse basestation transmitting wired keystrokes ?



I taked to a guy who were claiming that if you have a wireless mouse, with a

basestation that also is able to use a wireless keyboard. Then if a wired

keyboard is used instead, there is a risk for the basestation to transmit

the keystroke onto the wireless, as some kind of acknowledge to the

non-existing keyboard.



I'm not sure this is the right list to ask this, but am very interested in a

answer to this claim. Does anybody know if this is true or false ?



Thanks, Peter


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