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An American family in Portland, Oregon, received a nightmarish phone call two weeks ago.
"Unplug your Alexa devices right now," a voice on the other line said. "You're being hacked."
Apparently, one of Amazon's Alexa-powered Echo devices in their house had silently sent recordings to the caller without the family's permission, according to KIRO 7, a news station covering Seattle and western Washington state that first reported the story. The person, who happened to be an employee of the husband, was in the family's contact list.
Amazon's Echo, and other Alexa-enabled devices, are designed only to record when they hear a command.
Photo: Supplied"My husband and I would joke and say, 'I'd bet these devices are listening to what we're saying,' " said a woman to KIRO 7, identifying herself only by her first name, Danielle.
"At first, my husband was, like, 'No, you didn't!' And the [recipient of the message] said, 'You sat there talking about hardwood floors.' And we said, 'Oh, gosh, you really did hear us.' "