It recently became known through statements of the Director of CSI Institute to ERT that ketamine advertisements were found through the voice cookies of the mobile devices of the 33-year-old, who is accused of the death of her daughter in Patras.
After all, how much can smartphones provide information and record our conversations? Kelly Ioannou, director of cybersecurity at CSI Institute, clarified.
As ERTNews.gr reports, sometimes after a discussion we have, we see relevant ads appear on social media for something we mentioned.
The initial reaction is to be surprised. Most of us know that cookies exist, which are files created by the pages we visit. These files aim to make it easier for the user to navigate by storing their preferences and displaying relevant content.
Voice cookies
But what are voice cookies? Voice cookies store information from conversations between people that take place near devices such as smartphones and tablets. When we use the preset settings of our devices what we say can be recorded from the microphone.
Initially this is done to help users with a request, but also through personalized ads. And the proof of this is the appearance of relevant ads on social media for something we mentioned in a discussion a while ago.
This is done through virtual voice assistants (virtual assistants) such as Siri, google assistant and others which aim to help users by listening to their requests for a call, an sms or a to-do list. Also through applications that users install and have access to the device microphone.
Is it legal?
How legal it is for my own cell phone to "listen" to me. The answer to this question is "how is it legal" and in fact we have accepted it ourselves the first time we open our mobile phone when we buy it and "we accept the terms".
And how can we protect ourselves from such a thing? The answer here too is simple. The applications we download to our mobile phone must always be from the official online stores (Play store, Apple store), which means that they do not contain malware.
When an application asks us to access the microphone of our device we should think twice before pressing "accept". We can also delete the voice history in Google assistant. This will make sure that there is no sensitive information that could make us vulnerable to a cyber attack.
Always install software updates. This way the device will be updated for new viruses and attacks.
in.gr