Matt Wixey - Sound Effects: Exploring Acoustic Cyberweapons
Demonstrates malware that weaponizes speakers, headphones, and industrial ultrasonic emitters to cause physical harm, data exfiltration, and device damage.
Summary
Acoustic Cyberweapons
Matt Wixey (Security Researcher, PwC) presents research into weaponizing audio hardware — speakers, headphones, piezoelectric transducers, and industrial ultrasonic emitters — through malware, achieving physical harm and covert data exfiltration.
Speaker Damage via Resonance
Wixey demonstrates malware that drives consumer speakers and headphones with resonant frequencies and excessive amplitude, causing permanent physical damage to speaker cones and hearing damage at close range — a denial-of-service attack with physical consequences.
Ultrasonic Data Exfiltration
Using inaudible ultrasonic frequencies (20kHz+), the research demonstrates covert data exfiltration from air-gapped systems via ultrasonic acoustic channels between speaker and microphone-equipped devices at distances up to several meters.
Industrial Ultrasonic Manipulation
Industrial ultrasonic cleaning and welding systems use high-power transducers (hundreds of watts). Wixey demonstrates that software control of these systems enables weaponized ultrasonic beams capable of causing physical injury at short range.
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