Hackers have learned how to drain devices’ batteries via Wi-Fi: how is that possible?

NewScientist writes that cybercriminals can send a special request to any Wi-Fi device that appears in the air, thereby de-energizing it. Also, this does not require any hacking skills – devices that come straight from the factory have vulnerabilities.

The truth is that all Wi-Fi enabled wireless devices can recognize each other even if they are not paired with each other on the same network. With a simple $10 device, an attacker can repeatedly send bogus connection requests, and the victim device responds to it. Even if this is a connection error message (after all, the password is encrypted and not known to the hacker), a large number of bogus requests consume the attacked device’s battery resources because the device cannot go to sleep.

Security experts say that while this ability may seem harmless at first glance, it can be used to disable security cameras or as part of a coordinated attack with other vulnerabilities. After all, criminals can unleash autonomous cameras equipped with Wi-Fi, and the protected object will remain unprotected.

Fake requests can also be used to track the requested device within a radius of up to two hundred meters. For example, persistent requests get a fixed response, and the attacker knows the device’s position in space and where its owner is moving.

Surprisingly, experts tested more than five thousand different devices with Wi-Fi, and all of them were exposed to such a vulnerability. Jake Moore of cybersecurity company ESET says it’s impossible to predict how hackers might act using such a vulnerability today, because their creative potential is endless.

Previously Focus He wrote that artificial intelligence has learned to write viruses and hackers have seized a new attack tool.