mmEcho: A mmWave-based Acoustic Eavesdropping Method

Abstract

Acoustic eavesdropping targeting private or confidential spaces is one of the most severe privacy threats. Soundproof rooms may reduce such risks, but they cannot prevent sophisticated eavesdropping, which has been an emerging research trend in recent years. Researchers have investigated such acoustic eavesdropping attacks via sensor-enabled side-channels. However, such attacks either make unrealistic assumptions or have considerable constraints. This paper introduces mmEcho, an acoustic eavesdropping system that uses a millimeter-wave radio signal to accurately measure the micrometer-level vibration of an object induced by sound waves. Compared with previous works, our eavesdropping method is highly accurate and requires no prior knowledge about the victim. We evaluate the performance of mmEcho under extensive real-world settings and scenarios. Our results show that mmEcho can accurately reconstruct audio from moving sources at various distances, orientations, reverberating objects, sound insulators, spoken languages, and sound levels.