Researchers identify people through ordinary Wi-Fi routers with 99.5% accuracy — technique works with standard Wi-Fi routers
Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have developed a technique called BFId that can identify individuals through standard Wi-Fi routers with 99.5% accuracy. This method utilizes unencrypted beamforming data from Wi-Fi devices, allowing for identification even if the person is not carrying a wireless device. The findings will be presented at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security in Taipei.
- ▪The BFId technique works with off-the-shelf Wi-Fi routers and does not require specialized hardware.
- ▪It achieved 99.5% accuracy in identifying individuals compared to 82.4% for previous methods using channel state information.
- ▪The researchers tested the technique on a dataset of 197 participants, the largest for Wi-Fi-based identification studies.
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Tech Industry Researchers identify people through ordinary Wi-Fi routers with 99.5% accuracy — technique works with standard Wi-Fi routers News By Luke James published 25 May 2026 The team's "BFId" attack works with off-the-shelf hardware. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: ScienceDaily.com) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Security researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany have published a paper demonstrating that unencrypted beamforming data broadcast by Wi-Fi devices during normal operation can be used to identify…
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