Your Web Connected Smart TVs Can Also Be Hacked

Smart TVs has created a boom in the electronic television industry by providing users a interactive Flat Screen machine which shows high quality HD content and movies using internet with other social networking capabilities which includes login in to your favorite social website Facebook and Twitter even Skype, and providing a new advertising platform for online companies to run their advertising campaigns. Basically Smart TV is referred to as connected TV. It is a great discovery no doubt that a TV is connected to the internet but if we see its dark side, the machine which is connected to internet is much likely in chances of getting compromised and become a gateway for hackers to poke into TV owners account details and stealing their personal information and login credentials of social networking websites like Facebook , Twitter and Skype.

According to Forbes , The vulnerability can effect any brand of Smart TV which is compatible with the new HbbTV standard ( hybrid broadcasting broadband television ). This standard Smart TV is widespread in Europe and slowly spreading in USA. Millions of Smart TVs can be hacked as long as they are receiving an over the air digital broadcast signal.

Also Read - Samsung Tizen Based Smart TVs In The Pipeline.

Smart TVs are also installed with online shopping apps which means viewers opt to shop online from their Smart TVs using their credit card information in the TV , if the TV is compromised , users credit card information is also on risk.

A Team of researchers in Columbia University has been working on this vulnerability and has came to a conclusion that hackers can hijack your Smart TV as long as you tune in to specific over the air digital channel. The insidious malware runs in the background without the knowledge of TV owner. The attack is untraceable because hacker never presents himself on the internet with a source IP address or DNS server.

The only two quick remedies to prevent you Smart TV from the hack attacks is to completely cut of internet access to all broadcast delivered HTML content if you see any unwanted activity and monitor for unusual spikes. The second one is to turn on the notifications of launching apps that would ask users to press ok button before launching any application, because if your notifications are turned off , you will not know what applications are running at the back. Hackers main target is comprising the applications which you download on your TV and run them at the background to carry out their operation.

This Hijack attempt is not very easy as hacker needs more signal amplifiers to compromise large number of audience, so you should not get frustrated, just to make yourself alert with the situation , follow the above two precautions to make your Smart TVs secure.