Amazon’s best-selling Echo Dot is a powerful little speaker that works with voice commands to do everything you can possibly imagine. Want to make a phone call, play music, pull up a weather report, set up an alarm, or start playing a podcast or audio book? If you own a Dot, doing these things is as easy as verbally requesting them. The Dot is compact, simple to use, and has become so ubiquitous that it seems everyone you know owns one. But this is one tech device that isn’t always all that it’s cracked up to be. It has one major flaw that you need to keep on your radar to protect your privacy. And this is the scary reason you should unplug your Dot every night.
Your Echo Dot Is Listening — Always
On the one hand, it would make sense that your Echo Dot can hear what you’re saying — it requires that capability in order to function well and do the things you tell it to do. On the other hand, it should only be listening when you demand its attention. And that’s one major flaw that the company has yet to address, according to tech experts.
“Your Echo Dot is always listening to what you say and by default they NEVER delete any of the audio recordings,” says Tech Expert Benny from SmartHomestarter.com. “This could be years of audio recordings that they have stored on their databases. This means they will record and store when you mention sensitive information like your social security number, bank account numbers, and more.”
The only way to prevent this is to go into your settings to disable or modify how long they record before they delete your audio files, Benny says. “I urge anyone with an Echo device in their home to change their settings immediately. This is a huge security hole that most consumers don’t realize. Back in 2018, a man received over 1,700 audio recordings of another consumer by accident from Amazon! Your data is never 100% safe with any company.”
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There have been several examples where hackers and researchers were able to cause security issues with Amazon Dot by targeting its microphones, according to Olivia Tan, tech expert at Cocofax. “Those special and extremely sensitive MEMs microphones will react to lasers shining on them,” Tan says. “Combine this with specially crafted laser intensity modulation – a hacker outside of your house could aim a laser through a window at your Amazon Dot and issue commands to it, such as to unlock all smart locks, or order thousands of products off Amazon.”
It is even possible to direct subsonic ultrasonic sound (which you would not hear) like the laser beam to issue silent commands to your Amazon Dot, Tan continues. “MEMs microphones are capable of detecting unique environmental sounds, so if a hacker were to gain unauthorized remote access to your Amazon Dot – they could perhaps detect your physical location with enough data (i.e., airplane flight traffic, weather conditions etc.).”
Sounds scary, but all of this isn’t to say you should throw you Dot out. Modifying its settings so that it deletes audio and even turning the Dot off and not leaving it running all day and night can help protect you, your data, and your privacy.
