This is how SnailLoad works: a new spying method capable of finding out which videos and websites you watch

A group of researchers from Graz University of Technology has developed a new method of internet spying called SnailLoad, which can determine with 98% accuracy the video that a user is watching and with 63% accuracy the websites they visit.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus DOWNLOAD

Titled “SnailLoad: Exploiting Remote Network Latency Measurements without JavaScript”, the paper is the work of Stefan Gast, Roland Czerny, Jonas Juffinger, Fabian Rauscher, Simone Franza, and Daniel Gruss, who explain how this technique does not require the installation of malware or the observation of network traffic through a “person-in-the-middle” attack. Furthermore, the attacker doesn’t even need to be physically close to monitor Wi-Fi packets.

SnailLoad takes advantage of the “subtle variations in round-trip times of network packets”, which carry a side-channel signal influenced by the victim’s activity. By having the user download a small file, the attacker can measure latency and changes in internet connection speed to deduce the user’s activity. The name of this new type of attack is due to the slow download speed, compared to that of a snail. “Apart from being slow,” explain the researchers, “SnailLoad, like a snail, leaves traces and is a bit creepy”.

The attack is completely passive and remote, and is capable of accurately determining which video a user is watching or what web activity they are engaged in. To make matters worse, the only way to mitigate it is by degrading the internet connection, something that most users would not be willing to do. Researchers warn that “the root cause cannot be eliminated and further investigation is necessary to find satisfactory solutions”.

Although this threat is based solely on laboratory research and is unlikely to be exploited in the real world at the moment, this new method “demonstrates the wide range of possible attack vectors” that could “significantly stress security personnel,” according to Boris Cipot, a security engineer at the Software Integrity Group of Synopsys, who also warned that “similar attack vectors may already be in use without our knowledge”.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus DOWNLOAD