On the Security and Privacy Challenges of Virtual Assistants

• Since the purchase of Siri by Apple, and its release with the iPhone 4S in 2011, virtualassistants (VAs) have grown in number and popularity. The sophisticated natural language processingand speech recognition employed by VAs enables users to interact with them conversationally, almostas they would with another human. To service user voice requests, VAs transmit large amounts ofdata to their vendors; these data are processed and stored in the Cloud. The potential data securityand privacy issues involved in this process provided the motivation to examine the current state ofthe art in VA research. In this study, we identify peer-reviewed literature that focuses on securityand privacy concerns surrounding these assistants, including current trends in addressing how voiceassistants are vulnerable to malicious attacks and worries that the VA is recording without the user’sknowledge or consent. The findings show that not only are these worries manifold, but there is agap in the current state of the art, and no current literature reviews on the topic exist. This reviewsheds light on future research directions, such as providing solutions to perform voice authenticationwithout an external device, and the compliance of VAs with privacy regulations.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Kommunikationssystem (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Communication Systems (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

virtual assistant

data security

privacy

GDPR

internet of things

smart homes

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

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