Wireless Headset Privacy Issues!

[TomSharedware]

Hello everyone!

I am a first time wireless headset user and I am a little skeptical about how private/secure the broadcast signal is from my dongle usb wireless adapter device. Of course, this RF signal is being picked up by my headset allowing me to hear everything on my computer.

But how private is this signal? Couldn't anyone who also has a wireless headset that's within broadcast range be able to listen in on everything happening on my computer? Unless, the signal is encrypted through my wifi or only works with my specific headset then this is pretty ridiculous.

I checked Google and searched around but didn’t find any assurances. Hopefully, I can find some meaningful answers here.

Thanks!

 

[popatim]

There's no special security that I'm aware of, just normal BT Audio, but then you didnt tell us which headset you have so no one will know/can say for sure either.

 

[TomSharedware]

There's no special security that I'm aware of, just normal BT Audio, but then you didnt tell us which headset you have so no one will know/can say for sure either.

I intentionally did not state which headset I'm using as the question was implied for all wireless headset technology in general and would have been irrelevant. However, the exact wireless headset that I am currently using is the Corsair H2100.

I apologize if I wasn't clear before. In the most basic of terms my question can be reduced down to: Is it possible for someone else to listen to the audio from my computer if they are within broadcast range of my device and also have a wireless headset?

 

[mx_mp210]

In most cases any one can pick up wireless signals if they know exact frequency band you can listening on. About wireless networks WiFi ,Bluetooth and any other standards work on different 2.4ghz bands.
The problem i security in standards, For example WiFi provides security by doing AES or Higher grades encryption before transmitting data on AIR.
Bluetooth does it by pairing frequency changes about 1600 times per second which is pretty hard to catch up unless you have special equipments to listen and switch at same rate.

The headphones work on same frequencies, so first thing you need to know is frequency band : It's most of time the same as Channel 11 as in WiFi. The next thing we need is to determine if the connection between transmitter is encrypted or not which I actually don't know & can't find either on internet for this moment. So I assume that encryption takes some time, which adds delay they are not doing it for shake of real time performance. But again you'll need a particular 2.4ghz receiver and some kind of software to convert those signals to audio signals.

Now let's talk about protocols. Usually these headphones use proprietary protocol in order to deal with volume controls, audio signal , audio channel information which is usually maintained by device driver and it transmits through usb dongle. ALso they have to deal with multiple headphones in same network(Device ID's) . So in order to listen to this audio you need to reverse the same even though you have unencrypted data , you cannot directly listen to them you need to decode the data first and arrange it in order to get meaningful audio signal. The headphone has processor which deals with this kind of stuff plus decoding of Dolby 7.1 encoded signal also. And as we know You will hardly find those kind of people around

These are basic requirements for wireless communication and one must follow it in order to build the network which is secure and powerful enough. Otherwise it's the same as Radio stations and Walkey talkies.

So at result it pretty much hard for usual person to intercept your audio, which grants privacy. Otherwise people like you and me can always break standards and invade neighbor's internet connection or control their wireless devices

 

[TomSharedware]

In most cases any one can pick up wireless signals if they know exact frequency band you can listening on. About wireless networks WiFi ,Bluetooth and any other standards work on different 2.4ghz bands.
The problem i security in standards, For example WiFi provides security by doing AES or Higher grades encryption before transmitting data on AIR.
Bluetooth does it by pairing frequency changes about 1600 times per second which is pretty hard to catch up unless you have special equipments to listen and switch at same rate.

The headphones work on same frequencies, so first thing you need to know is frequency band : It's most of time the same as Channel 11 as in WiFi. The next thing we need is to determine if the connection between transmitter is encrypted or not which I actually don't know & can't find either on internet for this moment. So I assume that encryption takes some time, which adds delay they are not doing it for shake of real time performance. But again you'll need a particular 2.4ghz receiver and some kind of software to convert those signals to audio signals.

Now let's talk about protocols. Usually these headphones use proprietary protocol in order to deal with volume controls, audio signal , audio channel information which is usually maintained by device driver and it transmits through usb dongle. ALso they have to deal with multiple headphones in same network(Device ID's) . So in order to listen to this audio you need to reverse the same even though you have unencrypted data , you cannot directly listen to them you need to decode the data first and arrange it in order to get meaningful audio signal. The headphone has processor which deals with this kind of stuff plus decoding of Dolby 7.1 encoded signal also. And as we know You will hardly find those kind of people around

These are basic requirements for wireless communication and one must follow it in order to build the network which is secure and powerful enough. Otherwise it's the same as Radio stations and Walkey talkies.

So at result it pretty much hard for usual person to intercept your audio, which grants privacy. Otherwise people like you and me can always break standards and invade neighbor's internet connection or control their wireless devices

This was exactly the kind of response I was looking for at Tomshardware! At first I was a little skeptical of a wireless headset but when you take into account the device pairing, the frequency switches, decoding the right data protocols, etc… it becomes obvious that a typical layperson would not be able to “listen in on” the audio from your computer.

Thanks again for summing it all up for me and anyone else that happens to be concerned about this topic.

 

[popatim]

I think you are forgetting the starbucks proof of concept hack where a guy listens in on and talks on another's conversation. Its from several years ago and I'm sure the hacking technology has progressed much farther than that. I would expect headphone to be 'piece of cake' by now.

 

[TomSharedware]

I think you are forgetting the starbucks proof of concept hack where a guy listens in on and talks on another's conversation. Its from several years ago and I'm sure the hacking technology has progressed much farther than that. I would expect headphone to be 'piece of cake' by now.

I'm not familar with the "starbucks proof of concept hack". However, actual hacking takes time, creative methods, and determination. Any scriptkid can try and download "hack tools" and attempt to use them on people, but most people won't go out of their way or even bother to try. There are many different forms of encryption, obfuscation, and crypto methods out there. It's not like in the movies were some guy hacks into a system within 10 seconds while some random keyboard typing noises are playing in the background.

As for someone "hacking" into my headset, I would applaud anyone to identify the right pairing frequency (which changes 1600 times/sec), getting the correct device id, decoding the signal, and obtaining the specialized equipment required for the job.

It's my job to be skilled in programming, wireless networks, and cyber security. But, I'm really unfamiliar with the security of wireless peripherals (especially headsets as you can see).

But thanks again guys for bringing me up to speed! I will be back if I have any other related questions in the future!

 

[mx_mp210]

True, real scenarios are totally opposite from movies and tv series. They are films and a single person can even break into entire government system while the system administrators wouldn't even notice a single noise in system! Science fiction and reality are two different realms, never try to compare them. Real world people do not master in every aspect i.e computers , networking, OS, IT, biology, chemistry , history all at once as we see there

I would applaud anyone to identify the right pairing frequency (which changes 1600 times/sec), getting the correct device id, decoding the signal, and obtaining the specialized equipment required for the job.

It might be BT Audio but there are many RFC standards out there which uses 2.4GHz bands because of it's license free ISM nature. Since Bluetooth allows audio via A2DP protocol there's grater chance it's using Bluetooth standard as transport and then decode dolby 7.1 matrix to map channels. There are endless combinations to do these things. Only corsair can answer this question, which ofc they wont. People don't care which tech is used as long as it's doing the job

 

[popatim]

The proof of concept was BT btw.