How to hack mobiles using YouTube videos

Researchers have devised a way to leverage YouTube to hack mobile devices.

A team from the University of California, Berkeley, and Georgetown University have developed the means to compromise a mobile device using hidden voice commands embedded within a YouTube video.

In order for the device to be attacked, the intended victim needs to do nothing more than watch the YouTube content.

The researchers say on their project page that the hidden voice commands used by the attack are "unintelligible to human listeners but which are interpreted as commands by devices."

The video does not even have to be watched on the target mobile device. Instead, as long as the crafted video is watched on a nearby device - such as a laptop, PC, smart TV, or tablet - the commands will be received by either Google's Now voice assistant or Apple's Siri personal assistant.

As noted by Security Affairs, once these commands are deciphered by the voice-based assistants, they are executed.