iPhones, PCs and Amazon Echo worryingly easy to hack through their microphones

Popular voice assistants, including Siri and Alexa, are easy to hack because of huge design flaws in modern devices, researchers have found. They were able to take over seven different voice recognition systems on a wide range of gadgets, including iPhones, Windows 10 computers and Samsung Galaxy handsets, using equipment that costs less than $3. The team, from Zhejiang University, found that voice assistants can be triggered by voice commands that are inaudible to humans. Though an attacker would have to be in close proximity with the target device, they could take it over without actually touching it. The researchers used an ultrasonic transducer and an amplifier to convert normal voice commands into ultrasounds that are impossible for humans to hear.