Well it has been a long time coming and well anyone that works in IT Security with an understanding of RF Emissions will know nothing is safe from eavesdropping unless your in a Faraday Cage.

 

Wired keyboards emit electromagnetic waves, because they contain electronic components. This electromagnetic radiation could reveal sensitive information such as keystrokes.  In 1998 Markus Kuhn and Ross Anderson at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory published their work on eavesdropping on data transmissions by monitoring the electromagnetic emissions of data transmission lines.

Swiss researchers took a look this work and found that no one had taken the original work much further than the initial paper released in 1998. So they decided to take a look at this in todays IT world and see how much modern computer peripherals leak potentially sensitive information through the electromagnetic emissions.

In furthering the initial research they where able to come up with three other methods for eavesdropping to fully or partially recover keystrokes from wired keyboards at a distances up to 20 meters, even through walls. The research targeted Eleven different wired keyboards all manufactured between 2001 and 2008, they found during the research that they all where vulnerable to at least one of the four attack methods they where using.

The researchers have not released full details of their work, only a pair of videos to demonstrate the attacks. The full details it appears will be published soon as their paper on their research is undergoing peer review. You can find the published work so far here.

 

So if your trying to protect something uber sensitive then consider putting your computer witihin a Faraday Cage or similar shielded room.