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Security Feature: Disable all Sonos Microphones when going out

  • 19 July 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 282 views
M

Bit of background here: After returning from a work trip I noticed that one of my Sonos speakers was playing music. After chatting with the neighbours, it appears that their children were shouting at their Alexa device and triggered mine  - through double glazing.

That got me worried that I have 8 Sonos devices in my house, most with microphones and Alexa enabled. AFAIK there is no way to set an ‘away’ mode disabling all microphones when we are going out. You would have to go around and ‘tap’ them all manually OFF and then re-enable them all on your return.

I understand that this is designed this way as a ‘security’ feature requiring a manual activation / deactivation of the microphone, but the security of Sonos devices is not my concern here. It is the security of other devices in the house which have speakers, e.g. cameras, baby monitors etc which could be compromised and then used to talk to your Sonos. i.e. “Alexa open the front door”.

If I had the choice, I would choose the option to enable ‘away’ mode over the potential security risk that my Sonos account is hacked. I believe Sonos should put this choice in the hands of the consumer.

Is this just me? Do I have too many devices? :p

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3 replies

Ken_Griffiths

I often switch-off my modem/router when we’re away for long weekend breaks, or go on holiday. In that situation Alexa devices can’t do anything, but my router configuration pages also allow me to block ‘device’ access to the WAN anyway (manually or by schedule) if I want to do that instead … and that can all be done from one page on the router. However switching off the modem/router is just sometimes easier (for me, at least).

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melvimbe

 

I understand that this is designed this way as a ‘security’ feature requiring a manual activation / deactivation of the microphone, but the security of Sonos devices is not my concern here. It is the security of other devices in the house which have speakers, e.g. cameras, baby monitors etc which could be compromised and then used to talk to your Sonos. i.e. “Alexa open the front door”.

 

A couple points on this.  First, if you are concerned about cameras/baby monitors being compromises, I would look into getting improved security on those.     Second, as far as I know, all smart door locks require a security pin when used with Alexa to unlock a locked door.

 

Third (bonus), although Sonos could do somethin about Sonos Alexa enabled device, they can’t do anything about every Alexa device in your home...but Amazon can.  A better solution might be to have Amazon allow you to disable a set of Alexa devices so the Alexa cloud services stops processing commands for the device.  So a device would listen and send the command, but the Alexa cloud service would ignore it.  A lot of commands are starting to process locally, not going to the cloud, but the Alexa service could still put the device on hold for processing commands.

 

Danny
M

Thanks for the replies and some good ideas. Whilst I don’t actually have a baby monitor or a smart door lock it was just the concept which I found open for abuse. Just like the neighbours setting it off accidentally, someone could just as easy shout through my letterbox ‘play Britney Spears volume 100%’ and ruin my street cred 😂

 

Maybe I’ll look at an IFTTT rule to block internet access to my Sonos and Alexa devices when I do my ‘going out’ command. 
 

Good idea re Amazon - maybe it’s something they might implement in the future. 

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