However, the real-world possibilities of such a hack are still limited. The image capture retrieval rate is slow and the images are blurry. The privacy issue is only confirmed for objects that make contact with a mobile device’s screen. Despite these limitations, the researchers suggest that stricter permissions for apps to access these sensors should be implemented as a future mitigation strategy.
Key takeaways:
- MIT researchers have discovered that hackers can use smartphone ambient light sensors to spy on users by capturing user interactions.
- The ambient light sensors, which are used to auto-adjust screen brightness, can capture images without using the device camera, thanks to a newly developed computational imaging algorithm.
- The real-world possibilities of such a hack are still limited due to the slow image capture retrieval rate and the blurriness of the images retrieved from a natural video.
- The researchers suggest that stricter permissions for apps to access these sensors could be a way to mitigate this potential security risk in the future.