Recently there have been a few stories circulating regarding privacy fears with Amazon Alexa. In this guide we look at what you can do to your Amazon Alexa Security to make it more secure and prevent these potential problems.

1. Check your Drop-In settings

Drop in is a brilliant feature that allows users to call each other or as Amazon call it ‘Drop in’ on each other. The potential security concern is by default anyone in your contacts and anyone in your household can drop in – without warning.

Drop in is controlled on a device level, this means if you have multiple Alexa devices you will need to change the settings for each.

If you never plan on using this feature the easiest option is to disable it. This can be done inside the Alexa app: Settings > Alexa > Drop In > Off

If you like the idea of it but want to secure it you have two options:

• • Household only, this limits it to users within your household account
  • On, however check to see who has permission and restrict those you do not want

Drop in permission per contract be found in the app: Contacts > Permissions > Allow Drop In.

All contacts that are black have an Amazon Alexa, all greyed out contacts do not.

2. Think about voice purchasing!

Being able to buy with your voice is something straight out of a Hollywood film. The potential concern is anyone could order expensive unwanted items.

If you never plan on voice purchasing you can disable the feature in the app: Settings > Alexa Account > Voice Purchasing > Purchase by voice > OFF

If you like this feature and just want to secure it this can be done with a 4-digit pin number. Found in the app: Settings > Alexa Account > Voice Purchasing > Require voice code > Enter a 4-digit code.

Note as this is only a 4-digit code it is not very secure but better than nothing. As with all passwords avoid sequential and repeated numbers and anything easily guessable like date of births. If in doubnt use a password generator like Norton password generator.

3. Enable Alexa request sounds

Alexa is listening for its trigger word, by default Alexa. If it incorrectly identifies a word as Alexa she will either perform an action it thought it heard or prompt the user for input.

The potential security concern here is if it incorrectly hears Alexa and starts an action, listening to the conversation.

The best solution is to take steps to make you aware if Alexa is triggered, this way you know it is listening and can tell it to stop. Saying Stop to Alexa cancels any action or innput.

This is done by enabling Alexa request sounds, Alexa then makes a chime everytime it is triggered.  This is done in the app: Setting > Sounds > Request Sounds > Start of Request > ON

When you now use her trigger word you will hear a notification sound.

4. Check your history

Alexa keeps a record of all interactions. If you have concerns or if Alexa just mishears you and awakes you can check in the app to see what happened. This can be found in: Alexa > History. You can also report false activations to Amazon.

5. Learn how to disable your Alexa microphone

Due to the nature of Alexa it has a built-in microphone to ensure it is on hand when you need it. This can however be disabled if you are specifically security conscious and enabled again when you want to use Alexa. Disabling it does however stop Alexa being invoked so this is a temporary action as it will not work when disabled.

To disable the microphone, press the microphone button on the device, the outer light will now turn red to alert you its disabled.

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Facebook is not having an easy time now with trust being an all-time low – thanks to their recent data scandal where Cambridge Analytica illegally obtained over 50 million users data without their permission.

As part of that the #DeleteFacebook movement is gaining momentum with high profile companies (Tesla, Space X, Playboy etc.) deciding to take the bold step and delete their Facebook accounts. As well as high profile users like Will Ferrell.

This is very bad timing for Facebook as they were due to launch a new smart speaker at their F8 developer conference in May. The speaker was rumoured to be a competitor to the Amazon Echo Show, featuring a screen and camera.

The speaker was also supposed to launch new voice assistant, competing with Alexa, Google Assistant, Cortana and Siri.

However, with all the new privacy concerns Facebook has decided to delay the launch.

We really don’t blame them!

A lot of people have concerns over tech like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant ‘always listening’.  Yet enough have trust in Amazon and Google to buy and use them.

If Facebook was always listening there would be greater concern as to what it would do with the data and more importantly who would have access to it.

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We are all familiar with Alexa, Google and Siri however there is another and often forgotten voice assistant that is not quite as common – Cortana from Microsoft.

Today Microsoft announced a simple yet clever move – enabling IFTTT support with their voice assistant. This opens a vast selection of smart home tech to Cortana.

Currently IFTTT has over 600 services on their platform. It was released in 2010 with the vision of ‘making the internet do all the work for you’, in other words automate life.

IFTTT stands for If This Then That and allows you to easily connect any enabled tech with simple commands and no experience of programming. It also has a vast selection of pre-build applets that require minimal or no setup to use.

In October 2017 Microsoft announced Cortana’s compatibility with Samsung SmartThings, Nest, Philips Hue, Wink, and Insteon. Today’s announcement again shows their aim to integrate as many solutions and options as possible.

Watch out Alexa, Google and Siri – Cortana has not given up yet!

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A clear trend seems to be appearing in the virtual assistant space, setting assistants free from their devices, just like how Genie in Aladdin wanted to be set free as do these assistants or so it seems.

Google has announced its virtual Assistant, no they didn’t give it a name like Alexa, Siri or Cortana, will be integrated into lots of new tech.

At the moment, you can only access Google Assistant via Google Home, Android Phones, iPhone App and Android Wear.

The technology supporting this integration initially includes speakers:

Anker – Zolo Mojo
Samsung Harman – Link 10, 20 & 300
Mobvoi – TicHome Mini
Onyko – Smart Speaker G3
Panasonic – GA10
Sony – LF-S50G

As well as some appliances manufactures, models to be confirmed:

Honeywell,
Netatmo,
TP-Link
Wemo

We are not at all surprised with the speaker integration. However this is turning into a battle with Amazon Alexa already dominating and Sonos announcing a virtual assistant integrated speaker very soon.
What is your favourite Virtual Assistant? Let us know in the comments.

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*Update 27/7/2017*

We have had an exclusive comment from Sony, sadly it is not good news for the UK, for now.

Hi, the agreement was made between Amazon & Sony USA locally. We regret that at this time, there is no agreements yet for EU-continent.^Nada

— Sony UK (@SonyUK) July 25, 2017

Sony XBR77A1E 77-Class HDR UHD Smart OLED TV

Sony has announced that some of its Sony Bravia Android TV’s will soon be compatible with Amazon Echo, allowing you to control the TV with your voice via Alexa.

The integration initially will allow:

-Power On / Off
-Change channel
-Change volume
-Change input
-Control playback

The update will be done via a free automatic firmware update released ‘later this month’ with the USA first then UK. Based on previous updates expect it a lot later than ‘later this month’ for the UK.

However unfortunately the added Alexa functionality is only coming to a few select 4K Sony Bravia Android models:

2017 TV models

XBR-77A1E
XBR-65A1E
XBR-55A1E
XBR-75X940E
XBR-75X900E
XBR-75X850E
XBR-65X930E
XBR-65X900E
XBR-65X850E
XBR-55X930E
XBR-55X900E
XBR-55X800E
XBR-49X900E
XBR-49X800E
XBR-43X800E

2016 TV models

XBR-100Z9D
XBR-75Z9D
XBR-65Z9D
XBR-65X750D
XBR-55X700D
XBR-49X800D
XBR-49X700D
XBR-43X800D

Hopefully they will roll it out to more models later.

For more information here is the official beta information:
https://esupport.sony.com/info/1709/US/EN/#supported_tv

PS. You can buy Sony Bravia smart TVs from Amazon UK with next day delivery.

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