A security researcher presented a method to exfiltrate sensitive data from a laptop or a smartphone through built-in ambient light sensors.
The security expert Lukasz Olejnik discovered that it is possible to steal sensitive data exploiting the ambient light sensors built-in many smartphones and laptops.
The ambient light sensors are installed on electronic devices to automatically change the screen brightness, but Olejnik is warning of the intention of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) “whether to allow websites access the light sensor without requiring the user’s permission.”
In this way, an attacker can analyze variations in brightness through ambient light sensors and steal sensitive data such as a QR code included on a web page that are used for authentication mechanisms.
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