SoK: Acoustic Side Channels
Name
3778350.pdf
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982.02 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
381cd93d38c208cdae16f3d1c8d05e2a
Author(s)
Wang, Ping
Nagaraja, Shishir
Bourquard, Aur?lien
Gao, Haichang
Yan, Jeff
Date Issued
November 26, 2025
Journal
ACM Computing Surveys
Publisher
ACM
Citation
Ping Wang, Shishir Nagaraja, Aurélien Bourquard, Haichang Gao, and Jeff Yan. 2025. SoK: Acoustic Side Channels. ACM Comput. Surv. Just Accepted (November 2025).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Acoustic side channels (ASCs) have been discovered for several decades, highlighting the tangible security risks posed by unintended sound emissions from computing and electronic systems. Their existence has drawn considerable attention from researchers, driving rapid progress in both attack methodologies and defense mechanisms across a wide range of scenarios. In this paper, we provide a state-of-the-art analysis of ASCs, covering all the significant academic research in the area. First, we clarify existing ambiguities and conceptual confusion, proposing a clear definition of ASC. Second, we analyse the characteristics of known ASCs, discuss their security implications, and propose the first taxonomy. Next, we summarize attack techniques, discuss countermeasures, and identify areas for future research. We also link side channels and inverse problems, two fields that appear to be completely isolated from each other but have deep connections.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Magnetic Resonance Imaging Group
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1145/3778350
