Report: Amazon Key will give couriers & hackers access to your home
“In-home” delivery when no one is home
RT - October 25, 2017

Amazon is addressing customers concerns over thieves stealing their packages by... giving their couriers a key to their homes. Security experts have shown the move will leave homes vulnerable to hackers.

Amazon announced the new service Wednesday that would allow customers to request “in-home” delivery when no one is home.

Once a delivery driver arrives at a customer’s house with a package, they will request “secure home access” with the company. Amazon will then verify the driver is at the correct address at the right time and unlock the door through an encrypted authentication process.

“Amazon Key gives customers peace of mind knowing their orders have been safely delivered to their homes and are waiting for them when they walk through their doors,” Peter Larsen, vice president of delivery technology at Amazon, said in a statement.

To ensure “peace of mind,” Amazon announced the Amazon Cloud Cam Wednesday, an “intelligent indoor security camera” that will start recording before the door is unlocked. With the Cloud Cam, customers can watch a delivery as it happens in real time or review a video of the courier in their house on their smartphone later.

If a hacker was able to breach the AWS cloud, the footage from the Cloud Cams could become vulnerable. In the past, major breaches of large companies such as Equifax have seen stolen data leaked to the internet, where it is then bought and sold to the highest bidder. That means footage from the inside of customer’s homes could become a commodity on the black market in the future.

Amazon says that their new service is not only for deliveries, it will also allow family and friends to enter a customer’s house when no one is there. Customers can set the frequency and length of time that a person can enter their house and remove contacts whenever they want.

In the coming months, Amazon announced they will begin allowing thousands of “leading service brands” to use the service, including cleaning services, pet sitters and dog walkers.

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https://www.rt.com/usa/407786-amazon-key-security-risks/

Quote: Cincinnatus wrote in post #2

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Interesting idea, Algernonpj. Why don't you sign up for this service and report back to us on how well it went? Then we can decide if it's appropriate for us, too. Thanks.

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