Hackers Can Now Control Your Phone With ‘Silent’ Commands

Everybody standby to panic

September 11, 2017 9:00 am

Your smartphone isn’t going crazy — it’s only listening to the voice that commands it, even though it might not be yours.

According to a new frightening study, voice-controlled digital assistants (hi, Siri) can be controlled via commands that a human can’t hear — but your phone can.

A team led by Guoming Zhang and Chen Yan at China’s Zhejiang University in China just developed a system called DolphinAttack that uses ultrasonic messages to activate digital A.I.

Zhang and Yan tested DolphinAttack on iPhones, an LG Nexus, Samsung Note, Amazon Echo and Audi Q3 navigation system. They were able to get Siri to make a FaceTime call, switch a phone to airplane mode and, worst of all, trick the navigation system of an Audi car.

There may be a future software solution to this, but for now, you’re one silent Siri command away from a bad day.

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