ALERT SUMMARY
Amazon has a free new feature on many of it’s home technology devices called Sidewalk that uses a portion of your home internet to allow other devices and people to connect to the internet and it is ON by default. Why should we trust Amazon with all this data and connecting to our HOME networks?
Products with the Amazon Sidewalk technology work out of the box and will reconnect automatically to the network. Sidewalk is enabled by default so if you aren't aware of it, devices will start using your wifi! The “Community Finding” feature which shares your home’s approximate location with other people, is off by default which allows all these devices across your neighborhood to connect to the internet . This includes anyone walking around your neighborhood too.
Amazon states they keep data used by the feature encrypted and secure. This keeps communication between the neighborhood network and specific device protected and keeps the communication between devices and the AWS Cloud connected to the Sidewalk feature all encrypted as well but they can still see all the traffic and they could be hacked as well.
Sidewalk is basically a neighborhood network designed to help devices work better both at home and going beyond the front door as described by Amazon. Sidewalk is now available in speakers, security cameras, outdoor lights, motion sensors and item trackers like Tile.
Sidewalk has two parts: the Sidewalk and the Sidewalk Bridge features. Sidewalk Bridge feature provides internet connection to Sidewalk-enabled devices. Amazon Sidewalk uses a mix of Bluetooth, your home wifi and other technologies to extend it’s network across the range of Sidewalk devices in everyone’s homes and yards helping to keep all Sidewalk devices online.
You can find the Sidewalk Bridge feature on Ring devices including select Ring Floodlight Cams and Ring Spotlight Cams. Amazon Echo smart speakers now have the Sidewalk Bridge feature which means they will continue to work at the neighborhood cookout way down the street and because Echo is a Bridge, will even provide internet access to other Sidewalk-enabled devices in the area.
As this technology evolves and new uses are added to these smart devices, will we will even have control of our own home networks, what kind of data is being collected and will we be able to opt-out of them?
Next Steps - For additional details and Step-By Step Instructions on how to protect and respond to this Alert, follow the link below.
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