Building Trust & Enabling
Innovation for Voice Enabled IoT
Lynn Terwoerds

From the Keyboard to the Microphone• 1952 – first voice recognition device
recognized single digits• 2016• Siri, Cortana, Echo, Google Home, Hello Barbie,
Sony SmartWatch 3, Samsung Smart TV,
Honeywell thermostat, GirlTech Password
Journal, Skully Smart Helmet, Dragon Dictation –just to name a few• USD $6.4 billion IoT business (projected to be
USD $2 trillion in 20201)
Source = Jim Tully, VP & lead IoT researcher for Gartner, 2015

Opportunity• Development community has an opportunity to innovate andfundamentally change the way we interact with technology• Customers naturally will speak to their devices, developers will notneed to teach new habits• Significant opportunity to embed voice even more into IoT andcapture valuable data
• Voice can be used for many things• Recognition (already widely applied)• Biometrics• Converge with other emerging tech such as AI, data analytics, block chain,avatars

Risk• Voice is deeply personal and unique• Customers have already reacted with the fear their device is always“listening”• Voice is easy to capture (maybe unintentionally)• A new attack vector, plus the same old weaknesses• Customers can change their password, get a replacement credit card,even get a new social security number, but they cannot change theirvoice

A Matter of Trust• Lack of trust could stifle innovation• A serious incident will have ripple effects across the sector, not just asingle company• While there are new security & privacy concerns, many of theproblems remain the same
• It’s not just a technology problem• Educate customers & press• Address the FUD right away
• Leverage years of existing security resources (e.g. SANS, CVE)
• Speak the language of the customer• Proper transparency

The Power of Industry Collaboration• Thought leadership• Enable innovation• Save time, money, reputations• Tangible deliverables• Toolkit for developers• Legal thought leadership through “Legal Pad Notes”• Consumer infographics• Open to everyone – men and women• To join, email voiceprivacy@ewf-usa.com• Follow @voiceprivacy

VPA Innovation Toolkit http://www.ewfusa.com/voiceprivacy• Specifically for developers, peer reviewed by developers• 41 Agile security stories• Can be adapted for any development methodology• Focuses on voice IoT specific considerations• Toolkit is open source, meant to be adapted, modified• Next revision scheduled for Jan/Feb 2017
• Join the Voice Privacy Alliance and improve the toolkit!
voiceprivacy@ewf-usa.com

From the VPA Toolkit
Security Story

Guidance

Customers and the press have concerns the device is"always listening" and this makes them uncomfortable,
especially if the device is in a home.

Give customers a "mute" capability when a device or application isalways listening, even if it's just listening for a wake word (phoneme).
And a hardware kill switch is best because hackers could disable asoftware kill switch. Giving customers this kind of control may help
alleviate fears and uncertainty with devices that need to “listen” ascritical requirement.
You might also consider being transparent with customers how muchyou buffer when in listen mode. For example, your device might have a
30 second buffer as it listens for a wake word. After 30 seconds thebuffer is cleared and the cycle repeats until the customer uses the wakeword. Being transparent may alter customer perceptions and makethem more comfortable with your product. Allow customers the ability
to "mute" when a device or application is always listening, even if it's
just listening for a wake word. This could ease fears of someone always
listening. You might also consider being transparent with customers
how much you buffer when in listen mode. For example, your device
might have a 30 second buffer as it listens for a wake word. After 30seconds the buffer is cleared and the cycle repeats until the customer
uses the wake word. Being transparent may alter customer perceptions
and mitigate this fear.

From the VPA Toolkit
Security StoryGuidance

Customers fear what they say will live on forever. Theirconcerns might be expressed as, "If you record
something I say, can I delete it? What if I said
something I'm ashamed of or embarrassed by? Since
your device lives in my home or is something I wear, it's
possible you'll record something very personal orpotentially embarrassing."

If you are storing customer voice data, give them
control over their own data. Allow customers the ability
to delete their voice data, even if there are UX
implications to the product. You may also want to
inform the customer how deleting their voice data
could negatively impact their user experience.

From the VPA Toolkit
Security Story

Guidance

Customers understand that companies share customer
data with 3rd parties. Sharing voice data, especially an
actual voice recording may cause concern and mistrust.

If you authenticate a customer to a 3rd party service,
do so securely and make sure the customer is aware
they have crossed over a trust boundary. Again there isa fundamental difference between lower risk voicerecognition scenarios where a customer might request
a stock quote, you convert that request to text, send it
to a third party and the customer gets a response totheir request. If you are sending voice data to a 3rdparty to analyze, maybe parse and store, then you
should consider securing that communication.

From the VPA Toolkit
Security StoryGuidance

Can my voice enabled device just respond to me? In myhome and with my wearables, I live in a dynamic
environment and I wonder if my device could respondto someone else's command.

Verify if a single user should have a unique session
connection with your product or if multiple sessions areallowed. For example, Hello Barbie may have several
people interact with her, but the doll is associated witha child and that child's authorizing adult. Consider if
there are use cases where it would be appropriate toreject sessions not initiated by the authorized user.
Amazon Echo is the opposite, designed to respond toanyone who invokes the wake wordFrom the VPA Toolkit
Security Story

Guidance

Customers want to know you are keeping up withcurrent threats. Rogue wireless networks are a known
threat and many customers lack the knowledge toprotect themselves against this problem.

Ensure your device can verify it’s communicating withlegitimate devices or networks. It's possible you can befooled into connecting to a rogue wireless network or
your customer can be fooled.

From the VPA Toolkit
Security Story

Guidance

Most customers are aware of the problems associatedwith lost or stolen devices.

Consider physical tampering scenarios. Wearables and
IoT devices are shrinking in size. Developers must
consider physical threats against lost or stolen devices.
Automatic logoff or session timeout may help (cf.#63).
If there is valuable and very personal data on thedevice, consider encryption at rest.

From the VPA Toolkit
Security Story

Guidance

Develop use case scenarios where an attacker might intercept
If your device communicates with the customer, howwill your customer know it's your device talking and not the conversation between a customer and their device,potentially compromising the confidentiality and integrity ofsome interloper like a hacker?

the conversation. For example, a voice enabled children's toy
is made to say something wholly inappropriate to a childbecause the communication channel has been compromised.
When protecting voice data in transit you can transmit via TLS– or another acceptably secure protocol – that will protect thedata from interception or modification regardless of theconfiguration of the local home network. A solid overview ofusing TLS to protect communications can be found in theOWASP TLS Cheat Sheet:https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Transport_Layer_Protectio
n_Cheat_Sheet
Overall, it’s best to assume the home wireless network isinsecure.

Final Thoughts• Let’s not repeat old mistakes• Embed security early in the development lifecycle to save time,money, churn• Industry can demonstrate leadership ahead of• Regulation• Litigation• FUD• Download the toolkit http://www.ewf-usa.com/voiceprivacy