His AV managed to bust the win32 variant, without any issues. Nothing appears to have happened to the TV, but once the user inspected the thumb drive on a computer, he saw that it was indeed infected with that particular trojan. As the story goes, the user plugged a USB stick into the TV without knowing that the stick was infected with, a trojan notorious for its ability to reconfigure the affected machine’s DNS and to restrict access to some websites. Fishing for TrojansĪpparently, in 2015, a Tom’s Guide user reported that he unwillingly transformed his Samsung smart TV into a breeding pool for trojans. There’s even a story to go along with that claim several of them, actually. So, for a TV to get viruses, Trojans, or any kind of ransomware, you would need to perform a specific set of actions.įor instance, if you insert a USB flash stick that harbors a bug, then your smart TV gets infected. Well, that’s a bummer – how can a device get and not get infected at the same time? Let me try to clear things up a bit. Not quite – TVs, just like any other electronics, CAN become infected. Not much damage it can do from there (maybe trigger a voltage overload in those CPU cores or something). Now, even if the malware manages to evade detection (and that’s a very big ‘if’), worst case scenario – it will gain access to the TV’s config & general settings sections. Being digitally-signed means that in the event that malware does find its way inside your TV, it will simply be picked up by the in-built antivirus and deleted. Each time a new firmware update becomes available, it simply overwrites the old one. Sounds easy enough on paper, but reality says otherwise no one’s going through that much trouble just to hack a TV set!Īnother ‘countermeasure’ smart TV manufacturers use is the digital signature. So, what does that even mean? Well, it kind of translates to someone having to redo the whole code to change the attribute from ‘read-only’ to ‘read-and-write’. The second one would be the fact that all TV operating systems are written in ‘read-only’ form, which means that the set itself can view and read the code, but it cannot write or overwrite on its own accord. It’s true that most smart TVs use ARM- or MIPS-based cores, but the tech itself used to bring the sets to life, differs from that employed to build PCs or smartphones. That’s a prize worth having.įirst of all, a wide-spread cyberattack should be capable of targeting several types of chipsets. Of course, many agree that any kind electronic device can be hacked, but is it really worth it? Think of it this way: if someone were to hack his way into your PC, he could steal precious stuff like financial info. Daunting as it may seem, the chances of this actually happening are slim to none. Yes, one wrong download and you can probably end up with a bricked set or even with a compromised router. Android TVs are more vulnerable compared to the non-Android models since they have full access to Google Play’s apps library. Long story short – yes, your smart TV can get a virus if you download stuff that, well, you shouldn’t download. So, I started poking around to seek the answer to this elusive question. Per Samsung’s statements, the tweet was part of their cybersecurity awareness campaign.Īwareness or not, it does pose a rather interesting question: can a smart TV get a virus? Everybody agrees to disagree that the answer is “no” since smarts do not tap into the same resources as PCs, Macs, tablets, or smartphones. However, it did not go away quietly (into the night) – pretty soon, people began wondering whether or not their TVs are safe. Try as I might, but I couldn’t get ahold of the said message since the company was kind enough to delete not long after it went live. Like every ‘great’ Internet smash, the entire smart TV malware gig started with a tweet from Samsung. So, if you’re still worried about someone hijacking your smart during an epic streaming night, check out this guide. Since most smart TVs out there run an OS akin to Android, the question about whether or not TVs can get viruses seems only natural. Smart TVs are awesome since they give you access to tons of content without the need to use an intermediary – remember when you had to hook up your desktop or laptop to the TV just to see a movie? If you’re into gaming or streaming, you’ve probably bought yourself a wide QLED. Asking the real questions here – can a smart TV get a virus? We’re about to find out.
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