Amazon fixed an exploit that allowed Alexa to listen all the time

In news that will confirm your worst fears about a device with an always-on microphone in your home, security researchers have created a「skill」for Amazon’s popular voice assistant Alexa that allows the device to indefinitely eavesdrop on your conversations … While Alexa is designed to be listening at all times to pick up on any commands the user may wish it complete, the cycle for it to record is supposed to be short and sweet—it’s only supposed to communicate with Amazon servers to process commands after it hears its wake word, which is usually「Alexa.」After Alexa reads back information in response to a given prompt, it is supposed to either end the session or ask the user for another command, briefly keeping the session open … The attack, which simply requires a victim to download and install the skill on their Alexa device, suffers from one pretty significant giveaway: the blue light on the Echo or Dot remains active and illuminated, signifying that Alexa is still listening.