Gaming mouse could turn into spy tool

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, have turned a humble computer mouse into an unlikely spy.

An experimental project, named Mic-E-Mouse, showed that high-end optical mice often used by gamers and designers can double as eavesdropping tools, picking up conversations through desk vibrations.

“We show that it is possible to collect mouse packet data and extract audio waveforms. Moreover, the software scheme used in our pipeline is invisible to the average user during the data collection process,” wrote the researchers when presenting the prototype.

While the concept sounds like something from a sci-fi scenario, it actually comes down to basic physics. Modern mice, especially those with 20,000 dpi sensors and lightning-fast polling rates, are insanely sensitive.

When someone talks near a desk, those sound waves cause micro-vibrations on the surface. The mouse’s optical sensor quietly captures them the same way it tracks subtle hand movements and feeds the data into its connected computer.

From there, the researchers showed it’s surprisingly easy to turn that noise into speech. By extracting raw motion packets from the mouse, filtering out irrelevant vibrations, and running the data through a neural network, the team could reconstruct intelligible speech with up to 61% accuracy.

If it were exploited by attackers, it could be a new, dangerous attack vector. The data collection process is invisible to an average user. Also, any legitimate app that requests high-frequency mouse data like a game or photo-editing tool could theoretically be hijacked to record and stream those signals.Researchers note that consumer-grade mice with high-fidelity sensors are already readily available for under $50, and the price could potentially come down even further.

“An increased usage of vulnerable mice by consumers, companies, and governmental entities is expanding the attack surface of vulnerabilities in these advanced sensor technologies,” wrote the researchers.