A Method for Finding Frequency-Modulated and Amplitude-Modulated Electromagnetic Emanations in Computer Systems

Abstract

This paper presents an algorithm for finding carriers of frequency-modulated (FM) and amplitude-modulated (AM) electromagnetic (EM) emanations from computer systems. Computer systems create EM emanations across the RF spectrum making it difficult, error-prone, and time consuming to find the relatively few emanations that expose sensitive information. One of the most common and simplest mechanisms for information leakage occurs when an amplitude or a frequency of an existing strong signal (e.g., a processor or memory clock) is amplitude or frequency modulated by a system activity. If the system activity can be linked to sensitive information, this results in information leakage. We present an algorithm for automatically finding these AM and FM signals, demonstrate the algorithm's performance on several different types of processors and systems (desktop, laptop, and smartphone), and compare the results to an exhaustive manual search. We also verify that all signals identified by the algorithm can be traced to plausible unintentional modulation mechanisms to illustrate that these signals can potentially cause information leakage. This algorithm can be an important tool for system designers to quickly identify circuits that are leaking sensitive information.