New Air-Gap Attack Uses SATA Cable as an Antenna to Transfer Radio Signals
Jul 19, 2022
 A new method devised to leak information and jump over air-gaps takes advantage of Serial Advanced Technology Attachment ( SATA ) or Serial ATA cables as a communication medium, adding to a  long list  of electromagnetic, magnetic, electric, optical, and acoustic methods already demonstrated to plunder data.  "Although air-gap computers have no wireless connectivity, we show that attackers can use the SATA cable as a wireless antenna to transfer radio signals at the 6GHz frequency band," Dr. Mordechai Guri, the head of R&D in the Cyber Security Research Center in the Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel,  wrote  in a paper published last week.  The technique, dubbed  SATAn , takes advantage of the prevalence of the computer bus interface, making it "highly available to attackers in a wide range of computer systems and IT environments."  Put simply, the goal is to use the SATA cable as a covert channel to emanate electromagnetic signals and transfer ...