The flaws in Samsung Smart TVs, which have now been patched, enabled hackers to remotely turn on the TVs’ built-in cameras without leaving any trace of it on the screen. While you’re watching TV, a hacker anywhere around the world could have been watching you. Hackers also could have easily rerouted an unsuspecting user to a malicious website to steal bank account information.
I don’t even know how to express how creepy this is and how thankful I am that I’m not using a Samsung TV.
I almost bought a Samsung TV last year but could not bring myself to fork over any money to such a deceitful company. I too am glad I did not buy one for this and for other reasons (e.g.: Samsung’s continued use of deceitful practices to undermine tech websites and their forums with faked benchmarks and astro-turfing).
Had this been and AppleTV it would have been a stupid blogger storm about this.
When I saw the headline, I assumed it was about the cameras that TV studios use. I love gadgets as much as the next Loop reader, but I don’t want / need a camera in my TV. If I’m video conferencing with family I want to be mobile (laptop or tablet) to show them something other than the wall in my TV room.
Not just a blogger storm. I’d lay money that it would have been on national evening TV news.
Samsung and Google always get a pass on this kind of stuff. It’s just the way it is now unfortunately. Google is funding shindigs for congressmen that deny global warming and they get a pass. Apple is building green server farms and nobody cares.
I know lots of companies using Samsung Smart TVs in their meeting rooms. Just saying.
Not sure why they even hacked it. I’ll bet for $100 and a mention on Stack Overflow Samsung would just give you access to the cameras.
Agreed, but everyone expects Samsung software to have security holes.
http://threatpost.com/vulnerabilities-continue-weigh-down-samsung-android-phones-032013/77648
http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/12/developer-warns-of-critical-vulnerability-in-many-samsung-smartphones/
Oh looks this has happened before:
http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/12/how-an-internet-connected-samsung-tv-can-spill-your-deepest-secrets/
This kind of nonsense is why I wouldn’t mind seeing an end to Smart TVs. That and the pricing.
Lets go back to dumb display systems and let us add whatever bits we want to ‘smart’ it up