Radio trick turns laptop into a spy speaker that talks through walls

Security researchers from the University of Florida and the University of Electro-Communications in Japan have uncovered a novel vulnerability in modern digital microphones used in laptops and speakers. These MEMS microphones convert audio into digital pulses that inadvertently emit weak electromagnetic signals, which can be intercepted remotely using inexpensive FM radio receivers and antennas. This allows attackers to eavesdrop on private conversations without needing malware, hacking, or physical access, even through concrete walls up to 10 inches thick. Laptops are particularly vulnerable due to their internal microphone wiring acting as antennas that amplify these leaked signals. Alarmingly, the microphone does not need to be actively recording; simply running certain applications like Spotify or Google Drive can enable this leakage. The researchers demonstrated the attack by capturing distorted voice transmissions and then enhancing them using AI speech-to-text tools from OpenAI and Microsoft. The AI models achieved 94.2% accuracy in recognizing spoken digits from up to 2 meters away through walls, with a 14% transcription error rate, making most