Exploit found in Realtek chips can listen through a pair of headphones

A group of researchers at Ben Gurion University in Israel have developed a piece of software titled: SPEAKER(a)R that can switch a pair of headphones from listening to recording mode. This, in turn, could theoretically allow anyone with the intent to eavesdrop on a victim. Just to reiterate, this exploit was created by researchers and developers for two reasons: for fun, and to prove that most of today's PCs and laptops are susceptible to this sort of thing. There is a full abstract, complete with the intentions of the experiment and their findings. The idea was sparked from the...