Privacy Tools Guide

How to Tell If Your Home Assistant or Alexa Was Compromised: Security Audit Guide

Smart home assistants like Amazon Alexa and Home Assistant have become central to our digital lives, controlling lights, locks, thermostats, and accessing sensitive information. Knowing how to detect if these devices have been compromised is essential for maintaining your privacy and security. This guide covers the key indicators of compromise, how to audit your devices, and practical steps to secure them.

Signs Your Smart Assistant May Be Compromised

Detecting a compromise early can prevent further intrusion. Here are the most common warning signs:

Unusual Activity on Your Account

Device Behavior Anomalies

Network-Level Indicators

How to Audit Your Amazon Alexa

Review Voice History

  1. Open the Alexa app on your mobile device
  2. Go to Settings > Alexa Privacy > Review Voice History
  3. Filter by date and carefully examine recordings you do not recognize
  4. Note any recordings that occurred while you were away from home
  5. Delete suspicious recordings and history

Check Activity and Smart Home Devices

  1. Navigate to Settings > Account Settings > History
  2. Review the full activity log for unrecognized commands
  3. Go to Settings > Alexa Privacy > Manage Your Alexa Data
  4. Review connected smart home devices and remove any you do not recognize
  5. Check for้™Œ็”Ÿ skill permissions in Settings > Skills > Your Skills

Audit Alexa Skills

  1. Open the Alexa app and go to Skills
  2. Review all installed skills, especially those you did not intentionally install
  3. Remove skills that request excessive permissions:
    • Access to voice recordings
    • Contact list access
    • Payment permissions
    • Home network control
  4. Disable skills you no longer use

Check for Unrecognized Routines

  1. Go to More > Routines in the Alexa app
  2. Review all active routines, noting their triggers and actions
  3. Look for routines that:
    • Run at unusual times
    • Control multiple devices unexpectedly
    • Send notifications or emails
    • Interact with third-party services

How to Audit Your Home Assistant

Review the Logbook

  1. Access your Home Assistant web interface
  2. Navigate to Configuration > Logbook
  3. Filter for unusual time periods when you were not home
  4. Look for:
    • Unexpected device state changes
    • Automation executions you did not trigger
    • Unknown user logins
    • Service calls to unfamiliar integrations

Check Automation and Script Executions

  1. Go to Configuration > Automations
  2. Review all automations for:
    • Unknown or recently added automations
    • Automations with HTTP requests to external services
    • Automations that trigger on unusual events
    • Hidden or disabled automations that may have been intentionally concealed
  3. Check Configuration > Scripts for unfamiliar scripts
  4. Review the automation trace history for unexpected triggers

Audit Users and Permissions

  1. Navigate to Configuration > Users
  2. Review all users, paying attention to:
    • Unknown or newly added users
    • Users with administrator privileges you did not create
    • Service accounts with broad access
  3. Check Long-Lived Access Tokens in your user profile
  4. Revoke any tokens you do not recognize or that are no longer needed

Network Monitoring for Home Assistant

If you have network monitoring capabilities:

  1. Review DHCP leases for unknown devices
  2. Check your firewall logs for unusual outbound connections from your Home Assistant server
  3. Monitor DNS queries from your Home Assistant IP address
  4. Look for connections to known malicious IP addresses or domains

Verify Integrations

  1. Go to Configuration > Integrations
  2. Review all installed integrations, especially:
    • Third-party cloud integrations
    • Custom integrations from unknown sources
    • Integrations with access to sensitive data
  3. Remove any integrations you did not intentionally install
  4. Check for unofficial or fake integrations masquerading as legitimate ones

Securing Your Smart Assistants

After auditing, take these steps to harden your devices:

Amazon Alexa Security

Home Assistant Security

General Smart Home Security

Automated Monitoring Script

For Home Assistant users who want ongoing monitoring, this shell script checks for unexpected automations and logs recent activity:

#!/bin/bash
# Home Assistant: export recent logbook entries via API for offline review
HA_URL="http://homeassistant.local:8123"
HA_TOKEN="your_long_lived_access_token_here"

# Fetch last 24 hours of logbook entries
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer ${HA_TOKEN}" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     "${HA_URL}/api/logbook?hours_to_show=24" \
     | python3 -m json.tool | grep -E "(entity_id|message|when)" \
     | head -100

# List all automations and their last-triggered time
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer ${HA_TOKEN}" \
     "${HA_URL}/api/states" \
     | python3 -c "
import json, sys
states = json.load(sys.stdin)
autos = [s for s in states if s['entity_id'].startswith('automation.')]
for a in autos:
    print(a['entity_id'], a['attributes'].get('last_triggered','never'))
"

Responding to a Confirmed Compromise

If you determine your device was compromised:

  1. Disconnect the device from the network immediately
  2. Change passwords for all associated accounts
  3. Revoke API keys and access tokens
  4. Factory reset the compromised device
  5. Review and remove any unauthorized smart home devices
  6. Check for financial impact if payment information was stored
  7. Enable additional security measures before reconnecting
  8. Monitor for future suspicious activity more closely
  9. Report the incident to the device manufacturer
  10. Consider identity monitoring if sensitive personal data was exposed

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