Situation – Security Beyond Our Doors
Everyone is familiar with memos and training concerning security in the workplace, but there’s an increasing threat that your personal information is being overheard and exploited as a result of the smart devices in your home.
This article is intended to alert families and ask that they act by examining and possibly changing the default settings on their / your at-home smart devices. You can safeguard the privacy of your own family’s data by taking steps to “Opt-Out” of data collection and to ensure your personal privacy is not needlessly recorded, overheard and exposed.
As you bring Work information beyond your office and into your home, take the following measures to keep data belonging to your family both private and secure.
- Change the default device password to a unique password, (not easily guessable or same as the one you use in other settings such as your office network.)
- When having sensitive conversations, consider if you have disabled microphones and voice activations. For example, disable “Hey Siri”, “Okay Google”
- Cover device cameras with tape or sliding cover to prevent others from watching
- When not in use, turn off in-home WIFI – For example, if Smart TV doesn’t use it, turn it off.
- Periodically purge the history from all major social platforms. A good starting point is Google. Google collects for your phone and computer. You can find it by viewing “history.google.com/history” which shows everything you've ever viewed from your browser. Click on Activity Controls to turn off access.
Action
Let’s begin by identifying if you have devices that may be listening to your conversation. All mobile phones and most computers have applications that ask to and sometimes completely rely upon access to your microphone, video recording, browsing history, and cookie data. Increasingly, homes have a smart TV, smartphones, smart speakers, and other devices that collect our personal information.
Create an in-home inventory of your “Smart Devices”
Some common in-home devices are the Amazon Echo & Alexa, Google Assistant, and Google Nest. The most frequent offender for applications that utilize your microphone and data is Facebook, but any application installed on your Android or iPhone has the potential to listen and record your private conversation. Be vigilant in examining all applications you run from your mobile phone.
Amazon Alexa & Echo
In the Alexa app on your smartphone device:
- Open the Amazon Alexa app for Android or iOS, then tap Menu > Settings > Alexa Privacy
- Navigate to the menu on the left side of the screen and select Alexa account
- Pick Alexa Privacy and then Manage how your data improves Alexa
- Switch off the button that says “Help develop new features”
- Switch off the button under “Use messages to improve transactions”
- If you want to review or delete any of your past Alexa recordings, go back to the Alexa Privacy screen, then tap Review Voice History. We recommend you delete this history.
When you install the Facebook app on any device, it will ask to access your microphone, but it’s easy to deny this access after the fact. Facebook settings can be managed from your computer installation or from your mobile device. If you have multiple Facebook accounts, be sure you’ve done this for all Identities and consider taking similar steps for any other Social Applications you use.
On Android devices:
- Go to Settings and select Applications
- Choose Application manager and find Facebook
- Select Permissions and then turn off the mic
On iOS devices:
- Go to your Settings menu and select Facebook
- Choose Settings and toggle the microphone switch from on to off
- You can toggle these settings on and off depending on your preference using the instructions above.
Google Chrome
Google allows users to assess recordings made by their smart home devices and delete them if they so choose. Users may also opt-out of being recorded altogether by turning off the “Ok Google” wake phrase.
On Android devices:
- Choose Settings and then Google
- Select Search & Now and then choose Voice
- Switch Ok Google detection off to turn off the wake phrase
On iOS devices:
- Choose Settings and then Google Assistant
- Select Microphone and slide the switch off
Siri
Apple introduced the “Hey Siri” wake phrase with iOS 8, so she’s always right there and waiting for a request. However, you can opt-out of this feature without disabling Siri completely.
- Choose Settings and then General
- Select Siri and switch Allow “Hey Siri” to off
For more information here are some articles that go into more detail.
- How to keep Amazon, Apple, and Google from listening to your Alexa, Siri, and Assistant recordings
- How to Prevent Apps from Accessing Your iPhone's Microphone
Whether you're preparing for Cybersecurity certification, working with government standards, or simply starting your career in compliance, these are the NIST Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS), Special Publication (SP), and Interagency Report (IR) topics