Your smart TV may be accessible to hackers
They may be collecting more information than you realize, warns ‘ Consumer Reports’
LOS ANGELES – Buyer beware. If you’ve snapped up a smart TV with built- in Netflix, YouTube, Hulu and other Web connections, heads up on this warning — your smart TV could make you vulnerable to hackers and is probably monitoring more of your viewing than you realize.
Consumer Reports analyzed smart TVs from five big U. S. TV brands — Samsung, LG, Sony, TCL and Vizio — and found several problems. All can track what consumers watch, and two of the brands failed a security test.
How bad is the security? So poor, according to its report, that hackers were able to take over complete remote control of the TVs from Samsung and TCL’s branded Roku TV, which included changing channels, upping the volume, installing new apps and playing objectionable content from YouTube.
“What we found most disturbing about this was the relative simplicity of ” hacking in, says Glenn Derene,
Consumer Reports’ senior director of content.
The non- profit partnered with a firm called Dissconnect to do the tests.
It was easy to break in, Derene said, because “basic security practices were not being followed.” Both Roku and Samsung told Con
sumer Reports the companies would take a closer look at the issues.
Roku pushed back Wednesday in a blog post, saying Consumer Reports “got it wrong” and insisted there is “no security risk” with its products.
“We take the security of our platform and the privacy of our users very seriously,” said Gary Ellison, a Roku vice president.
The Consumer Reports test hacked into the TCL/ Roku TV by using a feature Roku created that allows for remote control access of the Roku, soft- ware that could be used, for instance, to let you use your iPhone as a remote. The vulnerability for users could come about if a phone owner, whose TV is on the same household Wi- Fi network, clicks on a malicious link that lets a hacker on the network — and the TV interface.
Roku says that feature can be disabled. Additionally, to use the feature, you have to be on the same WiFi system, and Roku suggests users have password- protected Wi- Fi to prevent security breaches.
Smart TVs represented more than half of all TV sales in the first half of 2017, according to market researcher GFK, and at this point, most sets being marketed are “smart.”