A team of researchers at the Black Hat conference this week detailed and warned that Samsung's line of Smart TVs were "rife with vulnerabilities that could leave the devices vulnerable to remote attacks."
The Samsung Smart TV line is basically a Linux-based computer with a Webkit-based browser, which is easily exposed to certain exploits.
The SmartHub in the Samsung line-up is a Java-based program, and the researchers were able to prove that it could be "exploited by a local or remote attacker to surreptitiously activate and control an embedded webcam on the SmartTV; the researchers were able to conduct DNS poisoning and drive-by download attacks and show how vulnerabilities could be combined to steal local user credentials and those of connected devices, browser history, cache and cookies as well as credentials for the local wireless network."
It's one thing to have a hacker control your webcam on your computer, but a lot of HDTV's are in the master bedroom. I think there is more at risk of things one wouldn't want let out in the master bedroom than at the office computer.
How long will it take before Smart TV's become a haven for malware? I bet Norton is salivating at the mouth to sell their anti-virus software for a slew of Smart TV's...
How many have a Smart TV and how many that have one actually use the Smart TV functionality?
The Samsung Smart TV line is basically a Linux-based computer with a Webkit-based browser, which is easily exposed to certain exploits.
The SmartHub in the Samsung line-up is a Java-based program, and the researchers were able to prove that it could be "exploited by a local or remote attacker to surreptitiously activate and control an embedded webcam on the SmartTV; the researchers were able to conduct DNS poisoning and drive-by download attacks and show how vulnerabilities could be combined to steal local user credentials and those of connected devices, browser history, cache and cookies as well as credentials for the local wireless network."
It's one thing to have a hacker control your webcam on your computer, but a lot of HDTV's are in the master bedroom. I think there is more at risk of things one wouldn't want let out in the master bedroom than at the office computer.
How long will it take before Smart TV's become a haven for malware? I bet Norton is salivating at the mouth to sell their anti-virus software for a slew of Smart TV's...
How many have a Smart TV and how many that have one actually use the Smart TV functionality?