Amazon Sidewalk Could Threaten Your Home’s Cybersecurity
Alliance Technology Partners’ CEO Bryan Ferrario recently appeared on KSDK to talk about the potential risks posed to home cybersecurity by Amazon Sidewalk.
The latest development in “smart” technology is Amazon Sidewalk, a new solution that intends to join neighborhoods together into smart networks.
For all the benefits and advantages this product could offer, it also presents a few key risks. Discover more in this segment on KSDK, featuring Alliance Technology Partners’ CEO Bryan Ferrario:
What Is Amazon Sidewalk?
Amazon Sidewalk is a new feature aimed at creating smart neighborhoods that is automatically enabled for everyone with Ring Doorbell and Amazon Echo devices.
Sidewalk employs the user’s Wi-Fi bandwidth to beam radio signals and low energy Bluetooth across multiple devices as a long-range wireless networking protocol. It can connect compatible devices over longer distances to extend Wi-Fi capability. In some cases, the networking protocol passes several wireless devices over half a mile. It works with 900MHz radio signals.
With Amazon Sidewalk, you share bandwidth with households in your neighborhood. This technology ensures that smart lights, garage door openers, motion detectors, and surveillance cameras remain connected even if your Wi-Fi is down.
How Does Amazon Sidewalk Threaten Security?
According to Amazon, all devices are anonymous, and any data in transit is encrypted. That means that, in theory, neither Amazon nor your neighbors should be able to access your private data.
That said, a properly motivated and equipped hacker could potentially breach the smart network. This would make your home Wi-Fi network more susceptible to malicious third parties. That’s why Bryan, along with another of the cybersecurity experts interviewed on this topic, stated that they would opt out of such a service.
How To Opt Out Of Amazon Sidewalk
You can opt-out of the service by following these steps on your smartphone:
- Open the Alex app
- Select “More”
- Select “Settings”
- Select “Account Settings”
- Select “Amazon Sidewalk”
- Disable “Amazon Sidewalk”
It’s that simple. Especially when it comes to a new product like this, it’s better to be safe than sorry — opt-out for now and see how the first few weeks go before you decide to try it out.
If you have any questions about cybersecurity, get in touch with the Alliance Technology Partners team for expert advice and guidance.
