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Monday, July 25, 2011

Smart TV or Smart Zombie

I am sure we all had heard of the term Smart TV. Its the "in" thing now. A TV capable of delivering very rich content from youtube to porntube video all the way to streaming your downloaded avi or mkv from your PC. Sound good, doesn't it? It does. In addition, you can even make video call with it via a TV Camera through Skype or other services. Its almost a PC. In fact, its almost "infectable" as a PC.

Yes, you know what I am driving at. Specific trojans or worms that is targeted at Smart TV. Why? Because the OS is simple and not easily upgradable. Would you upgrade your Smart TV firmware? I think maybe once in a blue moon. But you would download new apps or install some "patched" apps which makes paying for them looks stupid. These are good channels for an attacker to hit the users. And even if a jailbreak is necessary, I won't think it would take too long.

And whats the benefit of hitting a Smart TV? Its not on all the time. BUT is the server on? Probably not. Then again, some people have the TV on ALL THE TIME. If the attacker installed a trojans, its very hard to remove because I do not forsee user would pay for an Antivirus for your Smart TV, if in the first place there is one. This makes the Smart TV a perfect candidate for a "Smart" zombie.

Moreover, there are added bonus of the TV Camera. Imagine if you could stream these out, its almost like installing a spy camera in the house. I am not interested at what the camera may capture, but I am sure many other noisy people will be. I do not suppose there is a firewall to block the Smart TV from sending streams to "spycam.badsite.com". Well, you heard me. There will probably not be a market for security software if users needs to pay a lot of it.

Well, at the point of time of this writing, there is still no KNOWN trojans for Smart TV. But who knows, there may already be some in work or even deployed. Thinking of getting a Smart TV. Be Smart! Get a dumb TV!

P.S. I am not against Smart TV, but I just want to express my views on potential danger and security risks involved in rolling out such technology without a good mechanism for defense. This is the reason why the bad guys always wins.

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