Researchers at George Washington University and the University of California, Berkeley, found a way for hackers to get into smartphones and steal information using hidden voice commands that sound demonic.
"The severity of a hidden voice command depends upon what commands the targeted device will accept," reads the study, published last summer. "Depending upon the device, attacks could lead to information leakage [e.g., posting the user's location on Twitter], cause denial of service [e.g., activating airplane mode], or serve as a stepping stone for further attacks [e.g., opening a web page hosting drive-by malware]. Hidden voice commands may also be broadcast from a loudspeaker at an event or embedded in a trending YouTube video, compounding the reach of a single attack."
Google added voice recognition to its Android phones in 2010 and Apple followed with Siri in 2011. Amazon launched Echo, a smart speaker for use at home, in 2014, and Google released its own home voice-command product in October 2016, Google Home.
Research on hidden voice commands started around the time Echo was launched, says Micah Sherr, a computer science department professor at George Washington University. In experiments, researchers were able to hack into phones and plant malware with hidden voice commands.
"If I can command your phone and go to a website that I can control, I can download malware that can do horrible things," Sherr said.
"We don't claim in the paper that it is very easy to launch an attack," he added. "A lot of things would have to line up for the attack to happen. We're trying to raise awareness that these commands are possible."
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