Crashing HDDs by launching an attack with sonic and ultrasonic signals

An attacker just needs to play ultrasonic sounds through a built-in speaker of a target computer or by using a speaker in its proximity. The principle is simple, the technique leverages specially crafted acoustic signals to cause significant vibrations in the HDDs components that could cause severe damage. Modern HDDs use shock sensors to prevent the head crash, but the team of researchers has demonstrated that sonic and ultrasonic sounds could cause false positives in the shock sensor, causing a drive to park the head in a wrong position. "We created and modeled a new feedback controller that could be deployed as a firmware update to attenuate the intentional acoustic interference. Our sensor fusion method prevents unnecessary head parking by detecting ultrasonic triggering of the shock sensor" reads the paper published by the experts.