How can consumers ensure that their voice-controlled products are secure? originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus.

I would recommend that consumers look at the following to ensure that their voice-controlled products are secure:

• Is it equipped with trustworthy voice biometrics? While some products have voice biometric technology already integrated, the technology by itself is often vulnerable to malicious voice attacks such as pitch morphing or replay attacks. If your device includes voice biometric technology, make sure that it also includes voice spoofing countermeasures.

• Is it equipped with multi-factor authentication? Multi-factor authentication has shown its effectiveness in securing our smart environments.

• Is it transparent about data collection? Does the product tell you what data it's collecting, let you see that data, and even let you remove that data if you want? Google and Amazon have set a pretty good precedent for this.

Keep in mind that security might come at the cost of usability. That's why consumers may prefer acquiring products that have some sort of passive authentication means (e.g. passive voice biometrics, behavioral biometrics) or a configurable security level that depends on the service they're querying: asking Amazon Echo to read news about the Indian cricket team isn't as critical as accessing my bank account.

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