Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology say they have found numerous security flaws that could allow malicious hackers to seize control of PCs and smartphones through the use of voice-control features, including those designed to make the devices easier for disabled individuals to use. In research that will be presented at the 21st ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security this week in Scottsdale, AZ, the researchers describe 12 methods of subverting devices running the Android, iOS, Windows, or Ubuntu Linux operating systems (OSes), in some cases using methods that would not require any physical contact with the device. One attack uses malware that leverages Windows Speech Recognition to talk its way into running commands that would normally require a higher level of privilege, while another involves subverting the voiceprint feature of Android's Google Now digital assistant to access a device and then using generic text-to-speech apps to issue commands as if it were the user. To read furtherx, please vvisit http://www.technologyreview.com/news/532121/computers-could-talk-themselves-into-giving-up-secrets/.