'This technology turns every router into a potential means for surveillance': researchers warn you can be tracked and identified from Wi-Fi signals

• Researchers have identified a new Wi-Fi router security threat
• People in a space can be tracked using beamforming signals
• No physical access to the router is required to tap into its radio waves

Researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany have demonstrated how everyday Wi-Fi routers can be hacked and used as surveillance tools, using only the radio waves traveling from and back to the router.

Here's how it works: routers using Wi-Fi 5 or later get feedback signals sent back to them from connected devices, known as Beamforming Feedback Information (BFI). The router uses this feedback to manage speeds and stability, but these messages are flowing freely through the air, and can be nabbed by other devices too.

If someone physically passes through those signals, they get disrupted. The signal map isn't quite like a 3D map of a room, but the way the signals shift can...

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