How are services such as Amazon’s Alexa, Echo and Ring Doorbells allowing your neighbors to get you hacked?
As of June 8th, Amazon will be rolling out a new program that forces users of their Ring, Echo and Alexa to share their bandwidth with each other. This can have dire consequences in the form of hacking at neighborhood levels and invasion of privacy such as surveillance and stalking.
How Does it Work?
This location tracking program (underway since 2019) is called Sidewalk. It was constructed by Amazon to allow hardware devices (such as Alexa, Echo and all Ring products) to be able to be used via Bluetooth - without Wi-Fi! By using a portion of each Amazon device user’s bandwidth, Sidewalk will create a long-range, shared network that will provide connectivity out of reach of standard Wi-Fi connections.
This sounds like a good idea (here’s why it’s NOT).
While this sounds like an auspicious idea, there are clear and dark underlying connotations to this venture. Amazon has insisted that there are various protocols and layers of encryption that should, theoretically, be protecting participants. These seem like encouraging safe-guards, however, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are highly susceptible technologies, which will undoubtedly be a prime target of compromise by degenerate cyber criminals worldwide.
Why you should care?:
If you do not opt-out before June 8, 2021, you are accepting the risk of those around you!
Even if you are doing everything right, your privacy is in danger because of users around you! If your technophobe or non-tech-savvy neighbor doesn't have a secure network, an active firewall, or doesn’t regularly update their computer software, they are at an extremely elevated risk for being hacked. Because their Amazon-controlled devices are shared with yours, you are also at risk.
If the staff in the office next door arbitrarily click links or download attachments from unrecognized senders, they are unwittingly granting hackers everywhere access to your computer.
Change your settings NOW!
Even more alarming still is that this technology has the potential to be extremely invasive, being turned into surveillance software which unleashes a whole stream of issues such as stalking, spying by three-digit agencies and more.
This is not an opt-in program. You and your Amazon device are automatically participating, unless you opt-out before June 8, 2021!
In fact, a significant amount of time has passed between the time that Amazon first notified users of this project and it actually being rolled out. Who remembers that email they got NINE months ago? G-mail users received these notifications in their “promotions” folders. Who consistently checks that? Consumers are being forcefully auto-enrolled into Sidewalk, which is scary!
Where can you opt out?
In Summary,
Amazon is a Big Tech company, and they had an idea to help extend the reach of their gadgets, but their Sidewalk project, as it stands now, has some alarmingly serious security risks holes. They are potentially enabling the systemic hacking of entire neighborhoods and office complexes. Before this tech can become useful and safe, especially for businesses, these risks must be mitigated. In addition, more safeguards must be in place to ensure privacy and ward away from wanton misuse from would-be hackers, stalkers and government agencies.
For more information on enhancing your digital security and protecting yourself from cyber threats, contact us!
Always acting in your best interest,
Eric Engebretson
** Don't forget to forward this to friends, family members, and colleagues who use these devices, too!
