"Smart TV Hack"

Hackers can use broadcast signals to hijack your smart TV, it has been found.

18:32 04 April 2017

Hackers have found a way to hijack smart TVs using broadcast signals.  

 

Security consultant Rafael Scheel developed the hack and demonstrated how to gain root access to two Samsung smart TVs without physically tampering with the devices. This could allow unauthorised individuals to access other devices in the home network and spy on people with the TV’s camera and microphone.

 

Mr Scheel, who used a cheap transmitter to embed malicious commands into smart TV, demonstrated the hacking method during a cyber security conference at the European Broadcasting Union in Le Grand-Saconnex, Switzerland.

 

He said:  '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.'

 

Dr Yossi Oren, a Cyber Security expert at Israel's Ben-Gurion University, added: '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.'