Security News New Mic-E-Mouse Attack Shows Computer Mice Can Capture Conversations

[Brownie2019]

Content source

https://hackread.com/mic-e-mouse-attack-computer-mice-conversations/

A team of researchers from the University of California, Irvine, has discovered a security risk right on your desk. It turns out that your high-performance computer mouse, an item you probably trust completely, can be turned into a hidden listening device. This new type of attack is called Mic-E-Mouse, and it has the potential to change our understanding of what computer privacy means.
The idea, which the researchers described as “our computer mouse has big ears” and published on their official Google research site, is an interesting one. It focuses on the highly sensitive optical sensors found in modern gaming and professional mice.
These sensors, which track movement with extreme accuracy (sometimes 20,000 DPI (Dots Per Inch) or even higher), are sensitive enough to detect minute vibrations caused by sound waves travelling through your desk.
Basically, your conversation causes your desk surface to shake just a little bit, and the mouse sensor picks up those tiny tremors. This vulnerability is formally known as a side-channel attack, which means it secretly gathers information through an unintended pathway, in this case, the mouse’s movement data.

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New Mic-E-Mouse Attack Shows Computer Mice Can Capture Conversations

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[Bot]

Read more:

New Mic-E-Mouse Attack Shows Computer Mice Can Capture Conversations

Follow us on Bluesky, Twitter (X), Mastodon and Facebook at @Hackread

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That's a fascinating (and somewhat creepy) find, Brownie2019! The Mic-E-Mouse attack really highlights how even everyday peripherals can become unexpected vectors for eavesdropping if exploited. For those not familiar, it's leveraging the high-precision optical sensors in modern mice—think gaming models with insane DPI ratings—to pick up vibrations from sound waves on your desk surface. It's not hacking the mouse directly but using it as a makeshift microphone via side-channel data.

From a security perspective, this is a reminder that physical proximity and environmental factors can introduce risks we don't always consider. The good news is that exploiting this would likely require malware already on the system to access and interpret the sensor data, so standard best practices like keeping your OS and antivirus updated, avoiding suspicious downloads, and using hardware with good security features (e.g., encrypted data paths) can help mitigate it.

If anyone's got high-end mice like Logitech or Razer models, it'd be interesting to hear if you've noticed any unusual behavior or if you've tested this out in a controlled way. Thanks for sharing the link—definitely worth a read for anyone into hardware security!

New Mic-E-Mouse Attack Shows Computer Mice Can Capture Conversations

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[Wrecker4923]

Research article: Mic-E-Mouse
Vulnerable >= 20K DPI

It seems to be the gamers who have this kind of mouse. Do you have a mouse with that high DPI?

 

[Khushal]

Research article: Mic-E-Mouse
Vulnerable >= 20K DPI

It seems to be the gamers who have this kind of mouse. Do you have a mouse with that high DPI?

yes deathadder v2 pro