Alexa is a snitch! Hacker Halted 2019 - Wes Widner
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ALEXA IS A SNITCH! You’re not paranoid, your voice assistant is listening. And what’s worse, Alexa is stitching on you! What is she hearing? Where is she sending it? And is there anything we can do to stop her?! Join me as we discuss the current state of security around voice assistants. And how to silence them.
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Alexa is a snitch! Hacker Halted 2019 - Wes Widner
- 1. Alexa is a snitch! Wes Widner – CrowdStrike
- 2. tl;dr Alexa collects your audio www.hackerhalted.com 2 • But you already knew that.. • What you may not know is what that audio contains • ..or how its stored • ..or who it’s shared with • ..or what to do about it!
- 3. Alexa is always listening www.hackerhalted.com 3 • The mute button is designed to be irritating • Alexa is almost the perfect listening device • Alexa is basically an excellent microphone with a computer attached • 2nd gen Alexa’s had a 7 mic array • Newest one comes with 4 far-field microphones • Easily triggered by design • The inverse square law means sound drops by 6db for every doubling of distance • So far-field mics must be extra-sensitive
- 6. Alexa is always recording www.hackerhalted.com 6 • Recordings are kept indefinitely • Recordings are kept in a large collection • Recordings are not protected by strong access controls
- 9. And when a customer interacts with an Alexa skill, that skill developer may also retain records of the interaction. www.hackerhalted.com 9
- 11. Kept in a large repository.. www.hackerhalted.com 11
- 13. Alexa doesn’t just record voice www.hackerhalted.com 13 • New apps and papers reveal that voice is not the only thing that's recorded • Environment, emotions and health are also recorded
- 26. Alexa is not the only snitch www.hackerhalted.com 26 • Google and Siri are also designed this way • Google plans to turn some phones into Alexa devices • Baidu and Sonos are catching up • Even without these, listening devices are pretty cheap
- 30. Snitches get stitches www.hackerhalted.com 30 • You knew this was coming.. • Be mindful of the audio you produce • Consider shaping that landscape • Dampen or mask areas like you were a cold war spy • Help out with an open source on-prem voice assistant • Shut your mouth • Know and respect the ones trying to protect you
- 38. Shout out to the Mozilla Voice project www.hackerhalted.com 38 https://voice.mozilla. org
- 40. Conclusion www.hackerhalted.com 40 • Alexa is always listening • Amazon is always recording • Alexa doesn’t just record voices • Alexa isn’t the only snitch • Snitches get stitches
- 41. The end – Thanks for coming! Wes Widner Cloud Engineering Manager Crowdstrike (we’re hiring engineers) wes.widner@crowdstrike.com @kai5263499 https://github.com/kai5263499/audio-security-awesome www.hackerhalted.com 41