DolphinAttack: Researchers Send Undetectable Commands To Hijack Alexa, Siri

Hackers could use inaudible, undetectable commands transmitted via ultrasound in order to compromise speech recognition systems and popular voice assistants, security researchers in China discovered. The technique, dubbed "DolphinAttack" by researchers from China's Zhejiang University, could be carried out by an attacker to hijack voice-controlled assistants like Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa or Google's Assistant. DolphinAttack could be carried out by using ultrasonic frequencies that reach pitches above 20,000hz--well beyond the range humans can hear, but still audible to the microphone in a smart device like the Google Home or Amazon Echo and Dot. Newsweek is hosting a Structure Security Event in San Francisco, Sept. 26-27. By transmitting commands at those undetectable frequencies, the researchers were able to direct a number of devices with built-in microphones and speech recognition to carry out actions with potentially harmful results.