Smart TVs can become easy “prey” for hackers

Posted By Martha Papadimitriou on Apr 4, 2017 |

Smart TVs may be the next target for hackers and your favorite TV shows are not the target

Making our home devices more and more intelligent can be fascinating and helpful. But, they can also be vulnerable, especially if they have internet connection. The latest addition to the list is Smart TVs and it has nothing to do with its internet access. And here is how your Smart TV can be hacked according to report from Ars Technica.

Hackers could gain access via terrestrial radio signals and take control of your TV without getting near them. That sounds a bit creepy. Security consultant Rafael Scheel demonstrated how a hacker could attack a few Samsung smart TVs and he actually accessed them.

He stated to Ars Technica the following:

“Once a hacker has control over the TV of an end user, he can harm the user in a variety of ways.” “Among many others, the TV could be used to attack further devices in the home network or to spy on the user with the TV’s camera and microphone.”

But, you might ask how did he do it? Well in the demonstration Scheel used a cheap transmitter to embed malicious commands into a Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial (DVB-T) signal. In his demonstration he managed to remote control the TV, reboot and reset it, without any restrictions. The security consultant developed the method for the Swiss security consulting company Oneconsult and it was demonstrated in February at the European Broadcasting Union Media Cyber Security Seminar.

Scheel hacked into the Smart TVs because he was able to find and target security flaws in the Web Browser that the TVs run in the background and allow internet access.

Also, Yossef Oren, a security researcher said spoke to Ars Technica:

“This research is significant because TVs are used by a fundamentally different demographic than computers,” “People who use TVs don’t know/care about security, they aren’t used to getting security prompts from their TVs, they don’t have the discipline of installing security updates, and so on.”

But, there are also good news. Not all countries use DVB-T so not all smart TVs can be a target. That said you also must be connected to the World Wide Web and have a DVB-T channel locked in. So, if you live in USA who have As such, most folks in North America who are tuned into ATSC channels (Advanced Television Standards Committee) won’t face any random attacks.

But, this report also reminded us about the safety of smart homes and smart devices. Are we going to find a way to block threats and attacks? And which device will become the next target?