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Using ultrasound attack to disarm a smart-home system

theregister.com

1–10 of 37 posts

Re: Using ultrasound attack to disarm a smart-home system

#4
post #2

The article taught me that I can control Siri’s feedback volume by for example saying “Hey Siri, speak 25 percent.”

I learned that too, but now I'm wondering why her voice suddenly went silent a few weeks ago...

I also experienced Siri talking at what seems like 1% volume recently, out of no change that I can recall making. Just learned how to fix that through these comments, thanks.

Re: Using ultrasound attack to disarm a smart-home system

#6
> It's also worth noting that the length of malicious commands must be below 77 milliseconds — that's the average reaction time for the four voice assistants across multiple devices.

I don't get it. Why? You can speak to smart assistants much longer than that isn't it?

Re: Using ultrasound attack to disarm a smart-home system

#8

> It's also worth noting that the length of malicious commands must be below 77 milliseconds — that's the average reaction time for the four voice assistants across multiple devices. I don't get it. Why? You can speak to smart assistants much longer than that isn't it?

This har me confused at first too. Basically you are playing audio on the device and that audio will send a command to the same device. If I’m watching a video on my phone and say hey siri, it will interrupt the audio playing from my phone as it listens to me. But it isn’t instantly interrupting the audio, it apparently takes about 77 milliseconds.

Re: Using ultrasound attack to disarm a smart-home system

#10
post #7

> could be remotely hijacked, using carefully crafted near-ultrasonic sounds, and forced to make unwanted phone calls and money transfers, disable alarm systems, or unlock doors. I know Siri is much too dumb to facilitate a money transfer…

Getting Siri to actually do what you want it by standing close by and shouting tends not to work - not sure how some ultrasonic whisper is going to get the job done.
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