Is your smart speaker listening into your conversations?

Rumours suggest that hackers may still have the ability to listen in to conversations via smart speakers and are gaining access to private data, thanks to third-party apps.

Google and Amazon both offer back-ends to developers to create Home and Alexa-based apps, and it’s this that seems to be causing the issues.  When a cybercriminal adds a specific question mark symbol to the backend, it cleverly forces the speaker to remain silent, yet active.  And this is when hackers can listen in and gain valuable insights into the day to day living of people and their private data.  Users are being asked for specific data under the disguise of checking your credentials are correct via the speaker (and why would you argue with Alexa?!) – hackers are then gaining access to those all-important passwords.

Amazon and Google do state that no device should ask for your password, so if you suddenly have a voice talking to you to verify personal data or when you see the light on your smart speaker stay on, the chances are someone other than ‘Alexa’ is listening in.