Researchers Bypassed Windows Password Locks With Cortana Voice Commands

Posted on Mar 7, 2018

Researchers Bypassed Windows Password Locks With Cortana Voice Commands

Tal Be’ery and Amichai Shulman found that the always-listening Cortana agent responds to some voice commands even when computers are asleep and locked, allowing someone with physical access to plug a USB with a network adapter into the computer, then verbally instruct Cortana to launch the computer’s browser and go to a web address that does not use https—that is, a web address that does not encrypt traffic between a user’s machine and the website. The attacker’s malicious network adapter then intercepts the web session to send the computer to a malicious site instead, where malware downloads to the machine, all while the computer owner believes his or her machine is protected.

Source: vice.com