Be careful, Siri could be listening in on you
As the popularity of personal assistant bots such as Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant picks up among households and businesses, there is increasing concern surrounding the security of such devices.
In March 2018, a couple from Portland were engaged in a private conversation at home, but an eavesdropper - their Amazon Echo - was listening and recording.
Without the couple's knowledge, the device then sent the recording to someone in their contact group.
The Guardian reported an incident in 2017 when Mr Martin Josephson, who lives in London, came home from work and heard his Amazon Echo Dot voice assistant spitting out fragmentary commands, seemingly based on his previous interactions with the device.
The report said the device appeared to be regurgitating requests to book train tickets for journeys Mr Josephson had taken and to record TV shows that he had already watched.
According to Guardian, Mr Josephson had not said the wake word "Alexa" to activate the device.
Hacking such devices is not difficult, according to Security Research Labs, a Berlin-based research collective focusing on hacking-related research.
Last year, it found a new vulnerability affecting both Google and Amazon smart speakers. The vulnerability could allow hackers to get the smart speakers to silently record users, or even ask them for the password to their Google account.
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