---
announced: September 27, 2011
fixed_in:
- Firefox 7.0
- SeaMonkey 2.4
impact: Moderate
title: Inferring keystrokes from motion data
---

<h3>Description</h3>

<p>University of California, Davis researchers <strong>Liang Cai</strong>
and <strong>Hao Chen</strong> presented a paper at the 2011 USENIX HotSec
workshop on inferring keystrokes from device motion data on mobile devices.
Web pages can now receive data similar to the apps studied in that paper
and likely present a similar risk. We have decided to limit motion data
events to the currently-active tab to prevent the possibility of background
tabs attempting to decipher keystrokes the user is entering into the
foreground tab.
</p>


<h3>References</h3>

<ul>
  <li><a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=682562">Restrict DeviceMotion to the active document</a></li>
  <li><a class="ex-ref" href="http://www.usenix.org/events/hotsec11/tech/tech.html#Cai">
      HotSec '11 Workshop Sessions, "TouchLogger: Inferring Keystrokes on Touch Screen from Smartphone Motion"</a></li>
</ul>




---
announced: September 27, 2011
fixed_in:
- Firefox 7.0
- SeaMonkey 2.4
impact: Moderate
title: Inferring keystrokes from motion data
---

<h3>Description</h3>

<p>University of California, Davis researchers <strong>Liang Cai</strong>
and <strong>Hao Chen</strong> presented a paper at the 2011 USENIX HotSec
workshop on inferring keystrokes from device motion data on mobile devices.
Web pages can now receive data similar to the apps studied in that paper
and likely present a similar risk. We have decided to limit motion data
events to the currently-active tab to prevent the possibility of background
tabs attempting to decipher keystrokes the user is entering into the
foreground tab.
</p>


<h3>References</h3>

<ul>
  <li><a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=681562">Restrict DeviceMotion to the active document</a></li>
  <li><a class="ex-ref" href="http://www.usenix.org/events/hotsec11/tech/tech.html#Cai">
      HotSec '11 Workshop Sessions, "TouchLogger: Inferring Keystrokes on Touch Screen from Smartphone Motion"</a></li>
</ul>




Fix bug reference in advisory (wrong ID)
Fix bug reference in advisory (wrong ID)