Voice operated smart devices such as Google Home, Alexa pose serious cyber security risk, expert warns
They’re designed to make your life easier — but could do the opposite if you’re not careful. Voice-commanded smart speakers and home assistants like Google Home and Alexa could pose a serious security risk, experts warn — here’s how to protect yours.
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Voice operated kitchen appliances and popular home assistants such as Google Home are vulnerable to being hacked, posing a serious risk to households, cybersecurity experts warn.
Swinburne University Professor Yang Xiang said Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa, which respond to voice commands and can look up the weather or tell the time, were vulnerable to being hacked through their microphones.
He said all voice command technology was at risk, including the latest smart fridges, baby monitors, televisions and children’s toys, which could be used as “access points” to gain control of other commonly-linked household devices including security cameras and online shopping accounts.
“Any electronic device has the risk of being hacked, this is not limited to the brands like Google or Alexa,” Prof Xiang said.
“Depending on how experienced the hackers are it is not a hard job to hack into such devices, however, the hackers must meet certain conditions to launch attacks. For example, the hackers may need to know the specifications and parameters of the victim’s devices.”
His team of researchers hacked phones, tablets and home assistants by pointing a laser at their microphones and modifying data fed into it, but he warned the gadgets could easily be hacked without a laser and most Australian households were vulnerable
“Eighty-three per cent of Australians have smart home devices, and almost half have three or more devices and these can be easily targeted by cyber attacks,” he said.
Prof Xiang said his research sought to identify vulnerabilities in artificial intelligence and find ways to ward off hackers, and he warned people to think carefully about the types of appliances they linked to their phones, Google Home and Alexa devices.
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He said security updates should also be installed as soon as they were made available.
“If a device contains some sensitive data of yours, you might not want to connect it to the speaker,” he said.
“This is a consistent game playing between the cyber security professionals and the hackers.
“I believe that both individual users and companies must take active steps to make sure that the technologies are safe to use.”