This popular device could put your family at risk, finds studies

Many people use this article at home, but it can house huge security defects.


YourThe house should be a safe place For you and your family. Over the years, however, you have probably accumulated more and more technologies within your household to operate things smoothly, and all you bring in your home prevents you from protecting. In fact, a new study found that a popular device you could have at home could put your family at risk. Keep reading to know this major security problem and for more potential hazards at home,If you use this to relax, the FDA says stop immediately.

A study indicates that Alexa takes place mainly on third party programs.

Couple sitting behind a coffee table, installing virtual assistant.
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A study published March 4 of the Northern Carolina State University stated thatAmazon uses third-party programs, called "skills", for Alexa to allow people to do many different things, listen to music to grocery order. There are more than 100,000 skills that users can choose, whose majority are created by third-party developers. Unfortunately, these third-party skills introduce several problems that may endanger a user's security.

"When people use Alexa to play games or search for information, they often think they are oftenInteract only with Amazon, "ANUPAM DAS, co-author of the document and Assistant Professor of Informatics of the State University of North Carolina, explained in a statement. "But many applications they interact have been created by third parties and we have identified multiple flaws in the current audit process that may allow these third parties to have access to personal or private users." And for more daily peer,This is the most dangerous state of America.

Researchers have found several security defects in these third-party programs.

Rome, Italy, june 2020. Personal assistant Alexa in office business room, artificial intelligence help for trading online and live stock quotes news
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Researchers have used an automated program to collect and consider more than 90,000 skills of seven different skills stores. In the study, they discovered that skill stores show the name of the developer who created them, but Amazon does not live. In other words, everyone could claim to be a confidence developer, then participate in phishing attacks. The researchers of the study were able to successfully record skills under names of developers such as "Microsoft", "Samsung" "" Ring "and" Without Withings ", even if they had no association with these companies.

The researchers also found that Amazon allows several skills to be activated by the same sentence requested. "It's problematic because if you think you activate a skill, but by activating another, it creates the risk you share information with a developer that you do not intend to share information with" Das said. "For example, some skills require binding to a third party account, such as an email, bank or social media account. This could be a significant privacy or a security risk for users." And for more information up to date,Sign up for our daily newsletter.

According to the study, Amazon privacy protections are currently inadequate.

Photo series of an adult man working at the home office during a lockdown. Shot in Berlin.
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According to researchers, even some of the Amazon privacy protections are in place are defective. The Company requires that any competency requesting personal data, including location data, complete names and telephone numbers - have a public accessible privacy policy that explains why they want the data and how they are will use it. But according to the study, 23.3% of the skills of 1,146 skills they have evaluated that access to privacy data had no privacy policy or misleading or incomplete privacy policies. The results were even worse for children's skills, as only 13.6% of these provided privacy policies. And for more than one Amazon,You can be forbidden from Amazon to do this common thing.

Researchers say Amazon can do Alexa safer for users.

Happy young woman controlling smart home devices with a voice commands and smart speaker at home. Concept of a smart home and managing wireless devices remotely
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According to the researchers, the study shows that "while Amazon restricts access to user data for skills and highlighted a number of rules, there is still room for malicious actors to exploit or circumvent some of these rules. " By their account, Amazon has many improvements to make that Alexa users are safer. One of the suggestions of researchers is that Amazon inform users via a visual or verbal indicator when they interact with a third party program. They also recommend in Amazon validate developers and provide a confidentiality policy model for skills to complete. And for more things beware of your home,If you do your dinner in that, stop at the moment, experts say.


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