Woman says Amazon recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact

A Portland family contacted Amazon to investigate after they say a private conversation in their home was recorded by Amazon’s Alexa — the voice-controlled smart speaker — and that the recorded audio was sent to the phone of a random person in Seattle, who was in the family’s contact list. A Portland family contacted Amazon to investigate after they say a private conversation in their home was recorded by Amazon’s Alexa — the voice-controlled smart speaker — and that the recorded audio was sent to the phone of a random person in Seattle, who was in the family’s contact list.

iOS 11.4 to come with 7-day USB shutout

Mobile forensics researchers recently discovered a major new security feature while poking around in the beta version of Apple’s upcoming iOS 11.4 release, due soon. It’s called USB Restricted Mode: a feature that popped up in the iOS 11.3 beta but didn’t make it to the final release. The feature snips the USB data connection over the Lightning port if the device hasn’t been unlocked for a week.

Amazon’s Alexa Hacked To Surreptitiously Record Everything It Hears

Gaining access to Alexa turned out to be surprisingly easy. Checkmarx attached their malicious code to a seemingly innocuous app. The company used a simple calculator app for demonstration purposes.

Getting Alexa to continue recording after the benign script in the app was executed proved more difficult. Checkmarx had two problems to solve. Alexa needed to keep listening after the benign response was given without alerting the user, and it had to record what it heard.

Unprompted, creepy laughter from Alexa is freaking out Echo users

Don’t be alarmed! Your Alexa-enabled device may lapse into a sudden fit of giggles, but Amazon is aware of the problem. Recent reports detail a quirky bug that has Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa laughing for no apparent reason, scaring the daylights out of unsuspecting users.

Source: arstechnica.com