Carefully, your smartwatch can reveal what you are doing on your computer.

If you did not know about this, then according to the latest report released by International Data Corporation, sales of smart watches increased by 200% during the first quarter of this year, as a result of which over 11 million units were sold.

Not only do these gadgets attract shoppers, but they also attract the attention of cyber criminals. We have already warned you several times about vulnerabilities in smartwatches, but a group of researchers from the University of Illinois (USA) recently discovered a new the security risk posed by these devices. They showed that you can use them to track information that someone can enter on a computer.
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Knowing which letters are typed by the owner of a smart watch can help cyber-criminals to learn passwords without having to directly connect to your computer.

At the same time, it is not even necessary to change any settings of the clock or make any modifications, because the American experts were able to do everything with the help of the application developed by them. The utility used by them recorded all the information received by the various sensors to which the device was connected.

Using the information received from the accelerometer and gyroscope , the application recorded the movement of hands and fingers on the keyboard. Moreover, the experts used special information to build a 3D map.

Then they entered the received information into a special program that analyzed the rhythm of the inputs. Using two algorithms, they were able to calculate the exact key that allowed them to guess different letters.

One of them found the exact moment when the user began to enter information on the keyboard, and created a temperature map that showed the keys. The other one received the summary information and analyzed the pauses between entries, allowing them to calculate the number of letters that were pressed with the right hand (since the clock was on the left hand).



So, using this new mathematical tool as a dictionary, experts were able to guess the letters typed by the person who was wearing the smart watch. This utility is effective, but you still need to refine it, because it is not yet able to detect punctuation or other characters on the keyboard.

The work of these researchers is included in the Motion Leaks Through Smartwatch Sensors project, funded by the National Science Foundation. “Sensor data from wearable devices is a double-edged sword,” said associate professor Romit Roy Chowdhury, who is associated with the Coordinated Science Laboratory.

While devices allow health-related information to be monitored, they may also compromise the security of personal information. According to Chowdhury, “the real goal is to know the amount and nature of the information that can be obtained about individuals.”

In this case, the researchers simply developed the application, but they assure us that cyber criminals can do this thing and distribute it through platforms such as iTunes or Google Play . So, as is the case with smartphones, we recommend that you check the source of any application before you download it to your smart watch.