Siri is fickle enough to do the bidding of hackers, a pair of French researchers discovered recently, and will readily obey the commands of anyone who talks to her.
Hackers using radios to transmit commands from 16-feet away can control the Apple iPhone “personal assistant,” according to a report in Wired. The researchers, from the French government agency ANSSI, used radio waves to prompt voice commands (silently) on an iPhone or Android that features Siri or Google Now and is being used in conjunction with headphones plugged into the phone's jack. The headphone cord is essentially used as an antenna to change electromagnetic waves to electrical signals. The phone's OS then recognizes the signals as audio from the microphone, the report said.
The hacker doesn't have to utter a word to command the personal assistant to do a variety of things from making calls to eavesdropping and sending phishing messages.
