Security Loophole Allows Spying on Internet Users Visiting Websites and Watching Videos
Online activities can be monitored in detail simply by analysing latency fluctuations in the internet connection, researchers at Graz University of Technology have discovered. The attack works without malicious code or access to the data traffic. Internet users leave many traces on websites and online services. Measures such as firewalls, VPN connections and browser privacy modes are in place to ensure a certain level of data protection. However, a newly discovered security loophole allows bypassing all of these protective measures: Computer scientists from the Institute of Applied Information Processing and Communication Technology (IAIK) at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) were able to track users‘ online activities in detail simply by monitoring fluctuations in the speed of their internet connection. No malicious code is required to exploit this vulnerability, known as „SnailLoad“, and the data traffic does not need to…




