Charging Into Your Privacy: Indirect Privacy Leakage Attack Using a Laptop Charger
inforesearchPeer-Reviewed
security
Source: IEEE Xplore (Security & AI Journals)September 24, 2025
Summary
Researchers discovered a side-channel attack (a method of extracting secret information by analyzing physical properties like power usage rather than breaking encryption directly) called PrivateCharger that can infer what a user is doing on their laptop by analyzing magnetic field signals from the laptop charger from a distance. The attack works with commercially available equipment, requires no physical access to the laptop, and achieved 84.6% accuracy at certain battery levels, revealing that everyday peripherals can leak private information in ways previously not considered.
Classification
Attack SophisticationModerate
Original source: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11178204
First tracked: February 14, 2026 at 03:12 AM
Classified by LLM (prompt v3) · confidence: 95%