{"id":212308,"date":"2026-05-11T01:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T05:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/11\/odini-malware-uses-cpu-magnetic-emissions-to-breach-faraday-shielded-air-gapped-computers\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T19:30:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:30:21","slug":"odini-malware-uses-cpu-magnetic-emissions-to-breach-faraday-shielded-air-gapped-computers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/11\/odini-malware-uses-cpu-magnetic-emissions-to-breach-faraday-shielded-air-gapped-computers\/","title":{"rendered":"ODINI Malware Uses CPU Magnetic Emissions to Breach Faraday-Shielded Air-Gapped Computers"},"content":{"rendered":"

ODINI Malware Uses CPU Magnetic Emissions to Breach Faraday-Shielded Air-Gapped Computers<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/cybersecuritynews.com\/odini-malware-air-gapped-computers\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-11 01:25:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: cybersecuritynews.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points.
\nODINI is a sophisticated proof-of-concept malware capable of extracting sensitive information from air-gapped computers protected by Faraday cages.<\/p>\n

By modulating the targeted computer\u2019s CPU workload to generate low-frequency magnetic fields, this covert channel successfully transmits data through advanced physical isolation barriers.<\/p>\n

Developed by a team led by Mordechai Guri at Israel\u2019s Ben-Gurion University, the ODINI research highlights severe vulnerabilities in environments traditionally deemed impenetrable.<\/p>\n

Organizations in the military, financial, and critical infrastructure sectors heavily rely on air-gapped systems and Faraday cages to shield sensitive data from electromagnetic interference and remote network intrusions.<\/p>\n

Despite these robust precautions, ODINI demonstrates that motivated threat actors who initially infect a system via supply-chain attacks or compromised USB drives can still retrieve high-value assets, such as passwords, authentication tokens, and encryption keys.<\/p>\n

ODINI Malware on Air-Gapped Networks<\/p>\n

The core exfiltration mechanism of ODINI relies entirely on the precise manipulation of the compromised machine\u2019s central processing unit.<\/p>\n

The malware intentionally overloads the CPU cores with calculations, causing dynamic fluctuations in power consumption that inherently generate low-frequency magnetic fields.<\/p>\n

Because low-frequency magnetic waves have extremely low impedance, they easily penetrate standard computer chassis components and the solid metal shielding of Faraday cages.<\/p>\n

The transmitting code requires no elevated administrative privileges to execute its tasks and utilizes simple processor operations to evade detection by conventional antivirus software or runtime monitoring tools.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the malware uses advanced data modulation schemes, including amplitude-shift keying and frequency-shift keying, to encode the stolen information onto the magnetic waves accurately, Mordechai Guri said.<\/p>\n

Once the data is encoded and broadcast as a magnetic signal, an attacker must position a receiving device nearby to capture the covert emanations.<\/p>\n

The ODINI technique utilizes a dedicated magnetic sensor located within a physical range of 100 to 150 centimeters from the compromised machine, achieving a maximum data transfer rate of 40 bits per second.<\/p>\n

A parallel attack variant, named MAGNETO, exploits the identical CPU manipulation technique but uses an infected smartphone\u2019s built-in magnetometer as the receiver.<\/p>\n

MAGNETO is effective at distances up to 12.5 centimeters and transfers data at 5 bits per second, notably functioning even if the receiving smartphone is placed inside a Faraday bag or switched to airplane mode.<\/p>\n

Defending against magnetic field exfiltration poses a substantial engineering challenge for security operations centers.<\/p>\n

Conventional Faraday cages cannot block these low-frequency transmissions, and constructing physical shields from specialized ferromagnetic materials like mu-metal is often prohibitively expensive and highly impractical.<\/p>\n

Security professionals recommend implementing hardware-based signal jamming, which utilizes commercial magnetic field generators to actively produce counter-magnetic noise that completely drowns out the covert transmissions.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, software-based jamming can be deployed to introduce random CPU workloads that disrupt the attacker\u2019s encoded signal, though this defensive approach may temporarily degrade overall system performance.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, strict physical zoning policies that completely ban external electronic devices from the immediate vicinity of air-gapped computers remain the most reliable defensive measure.<\/p>\n

Cybercriminals now enter through your suppliers instead of your front door \u2013 Free Webinar<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ODINI Malware Uses CPU Magnetic Emissions to Breach Faraday-Shielded Air-Gapped Computers https:\/\/cybersecuritynews.com\/odini-malware-air-gapped-computers\/ Publish Date: 2026-05-11…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":212309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"http:\/\/cybersecuritynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ODINI-Malware-Air-Gapped-Computers.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[30,32],"class_list":["post-212308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-breach","tag-malware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212308"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212310,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212308\/revisions\/212310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}