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Learning Wireless Power: Part 1 - Security

02/10/10 | by zveriu | Categories: Hardware, Hack

Prolog

Wireless Power is not something new. It’s an old idea, an old dream, an old demo. However, it now revived with new forces in form of new technology products.

Mainly, there are two camps trying to use magnetic induction to charge things:

one offering a charging pad
other trying for over-the-air power

However, the post is not about going over this technology itself - if you want to explore, check the links provided at the end.

To the point

The point of this post is to discuss the security perspective of wireless power transfer, especially for over-the-air type. Several couple of years proved consistently that wireless technologies (WiFi, RFID, remote controls, GSM, etc.) are very prone to security vulnerabilities (sadly, most often by design, rather by implementation).

The types of attack one can envision are:

wireless power theft
[More:]
- it resembles WiFi sniffing. Imagine you buy appliances and equipment and make your home stuff to power without wires. Suppose, for efficiency you will use over-the-air (long range) transmitters which are build into floor/walls for aesthetic purposes. Now, imagine the not-so-friendly neighbor buys an equipment identical to yours, but he/she/they use only the receiver (and not the transmitter plugged to their power line), and receive the power from you thus making your bill sky-rocket.

The problems you have: “data"/wireless power theft (i.e. someone consumes your power on your money), lack of/insufficient wireless power control mechanisms (who/which device, when, where can use the power emanations), repudiation for the non-authorized/abusive users.

wireless power DoS/denial-of-service - since it uses Highly Resonant Magnetic Coupling, meaning that power source and capture devices are highly resonant magnetic systems, would it be (at least theoretically for the moment) possible to break this resonance/coupling by external means/phenomena?

Imagine that such a coupling disturbance model would exist, and implemented in a form of device that emanates specific magnetic field patterns/directions/levels. Now, suppose there is business which needs to be taken out and is known to extensively use over-the-air power transmission for its operations. Now, a near parked vehicle/a rented office over the wall/etc. and a device described above will for sure give a real pain in the back for the business owner.
but wait… - yes, I know that wires can be attacked in the same type of attacks (or even worse) as above, but it would certainly mean to leave more evidence than needed (cut wires, broken locks from central distribution/fuse panels, etc.), while wireless is like a magic - attracts “deadly” and works charmingly