Security News
Amazon this week activated its proprietary mesh network known as Sidewalk, linking tens of millions of Amazon smart devices, each sharing a tiny sliver of their bandwidth to provide a wide network of connectivity even when and where WiFi service is poor or unavailable. This explains why the default setting contained in the Sidewalk software downloaded and installed by Amazon in participating devices is 'on' - making Sidewalk opt-out rather than opt-in.
Amazon will be launching the Amazon Sidewalk service on Tuesday that automatically opts-in your Echo and Ring devices into a new feature that shares your Internet with your neighbors. This service aims to provide Internet access to your neighbor's devices when their Internet goes down or to give access to Amazon devices roaming throughout a neighborhood.
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Owners of Amazon Echo assistants and Ring doorbells have until June 8 to avoid automatically opting into Sidewalk, the internet giant's mesh network that taps into people's broadband and may prove to be a privacy nightmare. The idea is that if your internet connection goes down or is interrupted, your Amazon smart home devices will still be able to communicate with the outside world, and send out alerts or take instructions, by wirelessly connecting to neighbors' Sidewalk-compatible gadgets and using their internet connection instead. These Sidewalk gizmos communicate with one another using Bluetooth Low Energy over short distances and 900MHz LoRa over longer ranges, and use Wi-Fi to reach the public internet and Amazon's backend servers.
Amazon initially announced Sidewalk in September 2019, describing it as a "New, long-term effort to greatly extend the working range of low-bandwidth, low-power, smart lights, sensors, and other low-cost devices customers install at the edge of their home network." While Sidewalk has been in the works for a few years, the news of the June 8 deadline for turning it on seems to have caught many by surprise: It gives consumers just a week to learn about the initiative and to opt out if they so choose. As Amazon describes it, Sidewalk will do things like keep motion alerts from security cameras coming even when the Wi-Fi goes down; will stretch Wi-Fi out to smart lights at the edge of your driveway; and could act like Tile tags to help customers find pets and valuables.
Starting June 8, Amazon will automatically enable a feature on its family of hardware devices, including Echo speakers, Ring Video Doorbells, Ring Floodlight Cams, and Ring Spotlight Cams, that will share a small part of your Internet bandwidth with nearby neighbors - unless you choose to opt-out. Originally announced in September 2019, Sidewalk is part of Amazon's efforts to build a long-range wireless network that leverages a combination of Bluetooth and 900 MHz spectrum to help Echo, Ring, Tile trackers, and other Sidewalk-enabled devices communicate over the internet without Wi-Fi. Sidewalk is designed to extend the working range of low-bandwidth devices, and help devices stay connected even if they are outside the range of a user's home Wi-Fi network.
Amazon Web Services announced the general availability of Amazon Elastic Container Service Anywhere, a new capability for Amazon ECS that enables customers to run and manage container-based applications on-premises using the same APIs, cluster management, workload scheduling, monitoring, and deployment pipelines they use with Amazon ECS in AWS. Amazon ECS Anywhere provides a fully managed container orchestration service that allows customers to easily run, scale, and secure Docker container applications on any customer-managed infrastructure in addition to all AWS Regions, AWS Local Zones, and AWS hybrid infrastructure deployments. Amazon ECS Anywhere gives customers the ability to run Amazon ECS on any infrastructure using the same cloud-based, fully managed, highly scalable container orchestration service and control plane they use in AWS today.
Fraudsters are sending out fake Amazon order emails and tricking online shoppers into calling a telephone number manned by them to steal the shoppers' credit card details and other sensitive information. Both emails look contain Amazon branding and follow a structure similar to real order confirmation emails from Amazon but, if one knows where to look, there are many indications that the emails are fraudulent.
The attacks used fake order receipts and phone numbers in an attempt to steal credit card details from unsuspecting victims, says Armorblox. A standard phishing campaign uses email to try to trick people into divulging confidential information.
Amazon Web Services announced the general availability of Amazon DevOps Guru, a fully managed operations service that uses machine learning to make it easier for developers to improve application availability by automatically detecting operational issues and recommending specific actions for remediation. When Amazon DevOps Guru analyzes system and application data to automatically detect anomalies, it also groups this data into operational insights that include anomalous metrics, visualizations of application behavior over time, and recommendations on actions for remediation-all easily viewable in the Amazon DevOps Guru console.