Hackers Can Silently Control Siri From 16 Feet Away

Wired Magazine has released shocking details of hackers taking over cell phones from a distance.

On more than one occasion, the 'Hey Siri' feature on my new iPhone 6s was activated by someone other than myself. Most recently Michael Todd activated it while doing a break when I was in the studio doing some research a few feet away. Something he said made the 'Hey Siri' wake up on my phone and beep, loudly. Turns out, that's not the only way a hacker could activate features on your phone surreptitiously and take over the device.

'Their clever hack uses those headphones’ cord as an antenna, exploiting its wire to convert surreptitious electromagnetic waves into electrical signals that appear to the phone’s operating system to be audio coming from the user’s microphone. Without speaking a word, a hacker could use that radio attack to tell Siri or Google Now to make calls and send texts, dial the hacker’s number to turn the phone into an eavesdropping device, send the phone’s browser to a malware site, or send spam and phishing messages via email, Facebook, or Twitter.' - Wired

The article also features a video showing how one of these attacks can be carried out.

It seems the more we try to make our lives easier, the more vulnerable we make our devices to attack.

(Wired)