Advancement of home digital voice assistants: architecture enhancement and hardware based security / Ts. Rizzo Mungka Rechie

Voice assistants have become increasingly common in today's digital world because they are efficient and convenient. This technical development, however, also prompts worries about the susceptibility of personal information to security lapses. Users are growing increasingly concerned about potential risks such as identity theft and financial damages that may arise from data breaches. Voice assistants are vulnerable to a range of security weaknesses because to their extensive usage, which puts them at risk of unauthorised entry and data breaches. Safeguarding these devices against potential security threats has become an urgent priority, requiring actions to guarantee the privacy and protection of user data. This research project's main goal is to find out how well voice assistant security can be strengthened by installing a Hardware Security Module (HSM) and evaluate its efficiency. The main goal of this study is to show how HSM like the Zymbit Zymkey 4i can make speech assistants safer, lower security risks, and protect private and sensitive data like personal information. The study centres on employing the Zymbit Zymkey 4i HSM in a voice assistant system constructed on Raspberry Pi. The evaluation assesses the effectiveness of the HSM in delivering cryptographic key management and secure key storage to safeguard vital data from unauthorised access. The research thoroughly examines the characteristics of the HSM, with a particular focus on its energy efficiency and little memory usage. This study evaluates the practicality of incorporating HSM into voice assistant systems for extensive utilisation. This study shows that the inclusion of HSM greatly improves the security of voice assistant systems, based on thorough analysis and experimentation. The research findings suggest that the effective utilisation of HSM can verify the authenticity of voice assistant devices and prohibit system boot-up in the event of corruption. Moreover, the study emphasises the impressive energy efficiency and low memory usage of the Zymbit Zymkey 4i HSM, confirming its suitability for widespread use in voice assistant systems globally. To summarise, the usage of HSMs offers a practical and efficient method to enhance the security of voice assistant technology. This ensures that users data is safeguarded against unauthorised access and security breaches, while still benefiting from the convenience provided by these devices.