Streamers at risk as AI can guess passwords based on the sound of keys being pressed

Streamers may be at risk after a study revealed that AI can guess passwords based on the sound of what keys are being pressed.

Whether streamers are broadcasting to dozens of people or hundreds of thousands, the possibility of accidentally displaying sensitive information on stream is always there.

You might not have to show the information to risk having your passwords or bank info stolen by somebody watching your stream, however, according to a new study.

It has been revealed that AI can accurately be used to guess passwords based on the sound of what keys are being pressed by the user.

AI can guess passwords based on sound

According to the research, published as part of the IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops, bad actors can use AI on video conferencing tools like Zoom or while listening to a Twitch stream.

The study says researchers pressed 36 keys on a MacBook Pro, including all the letters and numbers, 25 times in a row with different fingers and varying pressure. The sounds were recorded over a Zoom call and on a smartphone placed a short distance from the keyboard.

Researchers then fed the recordings into AI, which learned how to recognize the sound of each key pressed on the computer. It’s unclear what model they used, however.

Results of the study revealed that the system could assign the correct key to a sound 95% of the time when the recording was made over a phone call, and 93% when it was made over Zoom.

There are ways to get around any potential AI detection, however, like using the shift key to capitalize letters, opting for biometric passwords like a MacBook’s fingerprint scanner, and using two-step authentication.

This comes just weeks after a study went viral showing that the most “emotionally triggering” text message was just a single letter.