IT

Hackers discover way to hijack Amazon Echo and spy on unsuspecting users

Author: Stephen Johnson / Source: Big Think

Smart speakers like Google Home and Amazon Echo are becoming increasingly popular in the U.S. About 39 million Americans regularly use these devices, which can do everything from play music, fetch a weather forecast and even order a pizza. The devices are able to perform those tasks because of voice-activation technology that triggers various scripts at the mere utterance of a word like ‘Alexa’.

Is there anything hackers can’t hack? Now there is, thanks to a new way of coding. Kathleen Fisher

Play Video

Play

Mute

Current Time 0:00

Duration Time 0:00

Loaded: 0%

Progress: 0%

Stream TypeLIVE

Remaining Time -0:00

Playback Rate

Chapters

Chapters

descriptions off, selected

Descriptions

subtitles off, selected

Subtitles

captions settings, opens captions settings dialog
captions off, selected

Captions

Audio Track

Fullscreen

This is a modal window.

Caption Settings Dialog

Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.

TextColorWhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyanTransparencyOpaqueSemi-TransparentBackgroundColorBlackWhiteRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyanTransparencyOpaqueSemi-TransparentTransparentWindowColorBlackWhiteRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyanTransparencyTransparentSemi-TransparentOpaque

Font Size50%75%100%125%150%175%200%300%400%

Text Edge StyleNoneRaisedDepressedUniformDropshadow

Font FamilyProportional Sans-SerifMonospace Sans-SerifProportional SerifMonospace SerifCasualScriptSmall Caps

DefaultsDone

Is there anything hackers can’t hack? Now there is, thanks to a new way of coding.

Kathleen Fisher

Professor and Chair of Computer Science, Tufts University

04:28

But that same voice-activation and recording technology has alarmed many security experts over the years who fear it could be exploited by hackers seeking to listen in on unsuspecting targets.

Recently, a group of Chinese hackers figured out how to do just that.

At the DEFCON security conference in Las Vegas on Sunday, researchers Wu Huiyu and Qian Wenxiang demonstrated how they discovered a way to hijack the second-generation Amazon Echo by exploiting a series of bugs within the device’s hardware and software.