5 Useful Ways To Keep Your Alexa Safe & Secure

In today’s technological era, saying that Data is everything would still be an understatement. With the explosion of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, our data and privacy always remain at stake. Cyber criminals find every now and then find new ways to invade our privacy. The chances of our personal information to get leaked and be stolen have multiplied with infinity.
One common Smart home device is Amazon Alexa, which has surely become a crucial part of our lifestyle. From knowing our daily briefings to staying up to date with current weather forecast, Alexa has definitely made our lives easier.

But as hackers are consistently attacking our private lives by stealing our private data, don’t you think it’ll be great if we take up a few steps to keep our Alexa safe and secure. What if hackers get a hold on Alexa and start listening to all your private conversations? You sure don’t want that right? So, if you’re pretty concerned about your privacy here are a few steps to secure your Alexa enabled smart home speaker.

1. Protect your WIFI Network

The first and the right thing to do as soon as you setup your Alexa device is to secure the network on which it is connected. For starters, you can change the default WiFi name and password of your network and create a strong one which is quite tough to crack. And if it’s possible, create one separate WiFi network for all your Smart home devices and one different WiFi network for browsing Internet or shopping online etc. Apart from this, keep checking firmware updates regularly and keep all your devices up to date running on latest versions of software.

2. Replace the Wake Word

As you’re all aware, as soon as we use the wake word Alexa starts listening and recording to your voice. So, what we recommend is change the existing wake word and replace it with something unique, which we don’t commonly use in our daily conversations. If that doesn’t work and if you’re still skeptical then you can also disable the device’s microphone to stop it from listening entirely.

3. Create a Strong Amazon Password

As they say, one thing leads to another, you never know which loophole might add and bring your privacy at stake. Suppose, if a hacker gets hold of your Amazon account’s password he can very easily access all your Alexa voice recordings history. So, if anyone gets hold on your Amazon account password, he or she can leak a lot of vulnerable information through your account. To avoid this, it would be great that you change your Amazon password today itself and create a strong password instead.

4. Review your Voice Recordings

As Alexa is crucial part of your lifestyle and home sweet home, we unknowingly reveal a lot of sensitive information to it. Apart from cat and dog noises, it might even store a lot of sensitive and financial information without your conscience. So, to be double sure you can review all your Alexa voice recording via your Amazon account and delete the ones which include a lot of private information. To listen to and delete stored recordings on Alexa, open Alexa app on your Smartphone and head on to Settings > History. You can also use the dashboard at Amazon.com to do the same.

Read Also : 5 Cool Features Of Alexa-Powered Smart Speakers

5. Take a Close Look at Third Party Privacy Policies

There are more than thousands of skills that Alexa is capable of doing. Each skill has its own set of privacy policy, so as consumers it’s our duty to dig into each and every privacy policy statement and review them thoroughly.
So, fellas, here were a few tips that can help your Alexa enabled device to be safe and secure. By following these few tips, you can stay protected from any security breach and keep your private and sensitive data away from cyber criminals.