Millions of Smart TVs Vulnerable To 'Red Button' Attack 155
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from Columbia University's Network Security Lab discovered a flaw affecting millions of Smart TVs supporting the HbbTV standard. The flaw allows a radio-frequency attacker with a low budget to take control over tens of thousands of TVs in a single attack, forcing the TVs to interact with any website on their behalf — Academic paper available online."
It doesn't take a genius to come up with an attack (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, I RTFA. And the responsible consortium knows about the bug and doesn't consider it "important" enough to warrant a change because it's "not cost efficient" to execute an attack.
It is.
If all it takes is to weave a signal into the program, there are SO many places where this can take place that it's literally trivial to execute. Aside of the idea they present themselves, i.e. a 1MW transmitter used to infect a rather small area, how about using the broadcast itself? Yes, that means that you have to gain access to the show when or before it is aired, but considering just how many people are concerned with the creation of TV programming, having an "inside man" is fairly trivial. From production to cutting to storage to preparation to the actual broadcast, a show goes through many, many hands, every single thereof having the chance to inject the signal without anyone noticing before it's too late.
Now add that the more recent history taught us that governments are certainly not above abusing such a flaw and tell me again that there is "no need for concern".
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I disagree. That's like claiming you can hack someone's ethernet switch by writing a special html page because the traffic will simply pass through. This red button attack works differently. If I understand correctly the interactive stuff (tv guide, pause, record) is provided by the cable company. They may use an underlying feed from the broadcaster but that's it.
Re:It doesn't take a genius to come up with an att (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It doesn't take a genius to come up with an att (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It doesn't take a genius to come up with an att (Score:5, Informative)
So the idea is that the attacker overrides the RF signal with his own one, which contains the malicious data.
No. They are actually overriding the DVB broadcast signal from the broadcaster and inserting malicious packets into the stream.
Abstract: In the attempt to bring modern broadband Internet features to traditional broadcast television, the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) consortium introduced a specification called Hybrid Broadcast-Broadband Television (HbbTV), which allows broadcast streams to include embedded HTML content which is rendered by the television. This system is already in very wide deployment in Europe, and has recently been adopted as part of the American digital television standard.
All of the references to the "red button" on the remote are a distraction that can be confusing. The red button on your remote is simply a way that you can invoke or interact with the hybrid content in the broadcast stream. It has nothing to do with the actual attack and the embedded content doesn't need to be actual interactive content.
Re:It doesn't take a genius to come up with an att (Score:5, Insightful)
Abstract: In the attempt to bring modern broadband Internet features to traditional broadcast television, the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) consortium introduced a specification called Hybrid Broadcast-Broadband Television (HbbTV), which allows broadcast streams to include embedded HTML content which is rendered by the television.
And for anyone wondering just why the hell anyone would want this, TFA clarifies:
Broadcasters and advertisers have been eager to use the HbbTV to target ads more precisely and add interactive content, polls, shopping and apps, to home viewers.
So let me get this right... "Punch the Monkey", coming to a TV near you? Flashing and bouncing "Take the "Which Ninja Turtle are you most like?" poll for a chance to win $1000!!!"? Malicious "Your TV isn't secure! Click here to upgrade!" ads that install some bullshit TV "app" that does only god-knows-what? Remote scripting running on a device designed without any security in mind, and which will probably never be updated during its 8+ year lifetime?
How can I make this clear? Do. Not. Fucking. Want. Yet another reason to avoid "smart" TVs, I guess.
Re:It doesn't take a genius to come up with an att (Score:4, Insightful)
The Red button can be useful IFF there is no network connection at all (preventing most of the crap). For example, on DirecTV you can pull up sports scores, weather for your location, and such.
But over the air with a network connection? I agree with you, DO NOT WANT!
I notice they seem to have put plenty of effort into DRM in the spec to protect content providers, and none into security that would protect the owner of the TV.
Yet another reason to avoid "smart" TVs (Score:3)
And cable, and satellite.. dont forget those boxes we now have to rent again to get our video feed ( the real reason for moving to digital TV,, but that is a different subject ) are in effect a smart TV... THEY control what your set gets to display to you..
Now what i dont know, is: Do these 'receivers' have this technology yet? If not, its a matter of time.
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Re:It doesn't take a genius to come up with an att (Score:5, Interesting)
Another effective mechanism, is to Decline the privacy policy. According to a recent Slashdot post, that disables pretty much every smart feature the TV has.
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How can I make this clear? Do. Not. Fucking. Want. Yet another reason to avoid "smart" TVs, I guess.
You really can't as far as I can tell.
You still can, though it might depend on what size of TV you're looking for. I'm in the market for a new TV right now, and I've noticed that Costco carries "dumb" TVs up through the 40" range. There are both smart and dumb sets at 40", with the dumb sets being about $75 cheaper.
But yes, if you're looking for a large set you may have a hard time avoiding them at this point.
Re: It doesn't take a genius to come up with an at (Score:2)
The people involved with the production of a tv show wouldn't have access to the data being exploited, the attack would have to be closer to the OTA broadcast or cable operator. Changing the files containing the code would be fairly obvious so you'd still need to use some hardware for a MITM attack inside the broadcast or cable facility.
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The Forbes article mentions a 1W and a 25W amplifier. Quick check confirms the paper also says this (not 1MW !).
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Of course, the OP probably screwed up doubly, and meant mW. Getting and using a megawatt transmitter is hardly "trivial."
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http://www.fmuser.org/low-powe... [fmuser.org]
I quote "I have a USA customer use 5W fm transmitter with GP antenna in his hometown ,and he test it with a car, it cover 10km(6.21mile)."
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When you say mW I presume you mean MW, mW is milliwatt.
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The OP mentioned a MW (megawatt) transmitter, which is hardly trivial.
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Executable content from an uncontrolled source. Sheesh! Why do the folks who design/build entertainment electronics have such a limited understanding of the digital world? Going back to the invention of the Compact Disc as a music medium, the industry consistently demonstrates an inability to think broadly about the opportunities and consequences of the digital world.
People with home networks (i.e., lots of folks) and a TV that permits executable content that was received from an uncontrolled RF source
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If/when I ever get a new TV, it'll be hooked up via HDMI to the XBMC video server I'll get around to setting up. No ethernet to the TV, that's just asking for trouble. But, of course, I'm an aging curmudgeon and I do things like that. :P
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Um, one megawatt could be used to hack a 'small area' like the entire United States. Perhaps you're thinking of a 1 mW (milliwatt) transmitter?
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And if you are an inside man, how would they catch you? Take a commercial, embed the attack. Then claim it must have been the editors for the commercial, who embedded it before it got to you. How would they p
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What would actually stop someone from connecting to the cable on the pole, blasting the transmission through it every 200 minutes or something and then pretending like nothing happened?
I mean almost no one would ever know it is happening as most cable boxes and TV buffer a small amount and the packet transmission would not need to be very long. Internet provided over the cable would likely just retransmit whatever got lost as it actually had error correction built in.
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The fact that you will only affect the 6 houses that is connected to that pole. the COAX is only from that Optical termination to the houses, and you can not magically make the equipment at the headend change it's programming from transmit video only to receive the data return and then resend it out the video transmit.
And even if it was old COAX only, you cant magically make RF amplifiers rebroadcast backwards.
Re:It doesn't take a genius to come up with an att (Score:5, Informative)
"All it'd take to do this is walk into the room and swap a commercial with one with the attack embedded."
I managed the Cable TV systems for commercial insertion for 10 years, so tell me again how easy it is to swap a TV commercial? Because all the AD insertion servers are password protected and also in locked racks that you have to get through first. Are you an uber haxor? where hacking a server is a 30 second trivial thing and then you know the Ad insertion software suite (Seachange By the way for all you Uber Hax0rs) so well that you carry the client insertion apps with you on your laptop? Oh and what file format did you encode that TV commercial? Because you need the right format for the system setup, no it's not the same nation wide.
In fact it's easier for you to pick a far less protected network location, Like a sales office, Get hired on the cleaning crew and attack the network from there to try and gain access to the encode and upload station at the main ad insertion office. If you are lucky, that one was set up by IT retards and is on both the corporate network and the ad insertion network (ad insertion network is a protected and isolated network)
A far more plausable route is social engineering while wearing a suit and having a lot of money. Contact a sales person for AD insertion, buy Air time and supply them with a Pre Encoded TV commercial that is already set up for their systems file and encoding settings. A file that hopefully they will just drop in the system and not run through any video re-encoding software that will destroy or strip your evil info. faking urgency and throwing a lot of cash at the sales person increases the chances of just a straight file copy, but that is against SOP and has a high possibility of failing. But then Places like Comcast pay nearly minimum wage for the poor guys that do video conversion and upload, so if done late in the day the chance that they will just copy and call it done is high.
Just swap a TV commercial..... That's Hilarious, this is not 1993 when you had racks full of video tapes for the TV commercials.
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But then Places like Comcast pay nearly minimum wage for the poor guys that do video conversion and upload, so if done late in the day the chance that they will just copy and call it done is high.
Sounds like that's the place to attack then - hand the minimum wage guy a USB stick and a bag of money.
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IT techs of whatever sort dont tend to be minimum wage, and the new hireds generally arent trusted with access to the sensitive stuff.
Not sure why people feel the need to post about how the system works when they have no clue.
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I managed the Cable TV systems for commercial insertion for 10 years, so tell me again how easy it is to swap a TV commercial?
I've worked CATV too, and the commercials were stored on tapes, at least on the systems I worked on back when I did it. It was as easy to swap a TV commercial as ejecting a tape from a VCR and replacing it with a properly queued version.
Just swap a TV commercial..... That's Hilarious, this is not 1993 when you had racks full of video tapes for the TV commercials.
Nope. They still had racks of tapes for smaller markets in the last 5 years. Many are hand-me-downs from the 1993 systems you refer to.
But does any of that matter. The attack requires coding that's above the level accessible inside the stream.
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And the drive-by version blasting o
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Re:It doesn't take a genius to come up with an att (Score:5, Informative)
The TS most likely re-written on final broadcast. If it is going out OTA, then the transmitter will repack the data as ATSC, regroom the MPEG2 content, and rewrite the PAT at the tower (usually with a custom PID for each video stream, a PID for DATA, etc, to make it consistent at the viewer's side). So changes are low there.
Since most CATV providers require a STB, very few TVs are using the ClearQAM streams directly (usually encrypted streams that require an handshaked box). Those very few that are using a CableCARD or equivalent are probably in such a minority you might not even want to bother. Oh, and the streams are re-packed when they are encrypted so garbage data is probably removed at that point.
Oh, and good luck "just walking into a CATV headend and replacing commercials." Every CATV headend that I've seen (including the one I run), don't store the commercials there, let alone have any way to change them. Those are usually controlled up-stream in some no-name office remotely then muxed or pulled in by the groomers or stat-muxers (depending on how they are setup).
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But, as you say, the coding for this
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tl;dr -- It's not as big of a deal as the TFA makes it out to be. The vector of attack is incredibly small, very well protected and requires a very specifically trained person with very trusted access to do. And the result would be that all they get is a webpage to pop up on a TV, that is turned on, that is tuned to that channel, and has the viewer's attention. Oh, and is on OTA.
I'd imagine a larger metro like Chicago you might get a few dozen people at most to be in this category.
Re:It doesn't take a genius to come up with an att (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been doing audits for a rather long while now. Few companies have sensors on their inside.
In other words, it will be easy to find out THAT something went on after the incident. Who did it, otoh, is an entirely different matter. You'd be surprised how easy it is to get into a lot of companies and move about unhindered with the right uniform and the "I belong here" attitude.
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Dont even need the right uniform. I do this all the time in just street clothes. Hell even past security checkpoints it's easy "I left my badge in the car" works great.
Re:It doesn't take a genius to come up with an att (Score:5, Interesting)
Heh. Well, I'm kinda proud of our security staff, they even sent a board member back (despite said board member ranting and raving about how he'll ensure the security person be fired) because he forgot his access card.
And yes, the board member actually demanded him to be fired. When I asked him if he really wants me to fire one of our guards on grounds of him doing his job and following the security protocol unlike a certain board member who expected and ordered the guard to break security protocol, suddenly he had to leave in a hurry... dunno why...
I LOVE working in a company where security trumps productivity.
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Your place is a minority, a very well trained minority that is doing things right.
Very cool that some places are doing security right. Problem is do you run background checks for all contractors coming in? Because your security will have to let outside contractors in the door without security passes eventually.
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We go into quite a bit of detail for contractors, company as well as the specific person that will come to us. And you don't get past the entrance without a security pass. Even with, as an "outsider" you will have your "personal assistant" with you. That's our wonderful euphemism for the shadow that will stay with you for your whole visit and watch every single move you make.
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Fantastic! It's a breath of fresh air to hear of a place that takes security seriously instead of just treating it as theater.
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That's a fairly sane approach to the problem at hand. One thing you should make mandatory for such events, though: There must not be any negative consequences for you for forgetting your badge. Well, other than your manager maybe not really enjoying to be called out of a meeting to pick you up at the entrance, but I actually made sure it's part of the security protocol that there MUST NOT be any kind of "official" negative impact.
The reason is simple: If there was, the worker will try to avoid this. He will
So: where is the liability ? (Score:2)
Joe Sixpack suffers a loss as a result of such an attack, who compensates him ? He has never heard of the possibility, but ignorance cannot be claimed by neither the smart TV manufacturers nor the TV broadcaster nor the local standards regulator. All of the latter will claim that it was some 'malicious 3rd party', but they knew about it and took no action to mitigate the threat. It is no longer an excuse to complain that ''it is software and very complicated''.
Who will compensate Joe Sixpack ?
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Re:So: where is the liability ? (Score:5, Interesting)
If the end result of TV manufacturers not releasing a more secure firmware for the affected models is your TV running malicious code that, say, simply bricks your TV, they should be liable for repair or replacement costs. If the result is that your TV ends up running code that hacks into your computer and steals your financial and personal details, they should likewise be liable for any resulting fraud and the cost of cleaning up that mess. In both cases, maybe a little something for the trouble, as well; it's best for society that we discourage purposeful negligence like this.
We're not talking about simply missing a TV show here; there are real and potentially damaging implications here.
Millions of conventional TVs vulnerable too (Score:2)
"Researchers from Dickweed University's Network Security Lab discovered a flaw affecting nearly every TV on the planet. The flaw allows a radio-frequency attacker with a low budget to take control over tens of thousands of TVs in a single attack, forcing the TVs to turn on or off, or switch channels. The attack works by equipping a drone with a powerful universal remote, sending commands to all TVs in a broad range." It's even scarier like this!
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Well, one important detail. Exactly the neighborhoods that have a high level of SmartTVs, will also be receiving their programming via cable or sat, so your RF highjacking is received by only tiny subset.
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Timing would make it easier to get larger numbers of televisions. Certain TV shows are more popular. The state of the union address, for example, would be watched by many of those in the more affluent neighborhoods.
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*In an affluent neighborhood, the broadcast networks will probably be coming in by cable or satellite too. If I understand correctly that makes them immune from this attack.
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"Researchers from Dickweed University's Network Security Lab discovered a flaw affecting nearly every TV on the planet. The flaw allows a radio-frequency attacker with a low budget to take control over tens of thousands of TVs in a single attack, forcing the TVs to turn on or off, or switch channels. The attack works by equipping a drone with a powerful universal remote, sending commands to all TVs in a broad range." It's even scarier like this!
That is not how this attack actually works. The attack has nothing to do with the remote and references to it and the "red button" have derailed things. This is an attack on the broadcast television signal. As you recall, broadcast TV was switched from an analog signal to digital. In Europe the protocol for this signal is DVB and in the US it is ATSC. Within these digital broadcasts is a protocol called the HbbTV standard which allows additional interactive data, features, etc. to be embedded to provid
Good luck with that (Score:2)
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Slashdot comments dominated by software guys. I can tell you, with the *right* (semi-expensive ~ 10k) equipment, the hardware part of this is fairly trivial. (lets say 1h)
Police and secret services use IMSI catchers and trojan-based attacks on a large scale, so why should they not set up a DVB base station for an attack on a specific target (nevertheless infecting 1 Mio of devices in the target area).
Large-scale phishing attacks could get *much* easier. Imagine a News channel which broadcasts a warning abou
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Informative)
Actually it requires about $200 and nothing more.
http://www.hides.com.tw/produc... [hides.com.tw]
Bundled Opencaster offers point and click HbbTV support.
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Okay, so far so good, but how about the signal amplifying and transmitting part?
TFA discusses that:
a $250 1-watt amplifier could cover a 1.4 square kilometer area. [...] By positioning the retransmission gear at a decent height within line of sight of a tower (on a drone, say, or on the roof of a tall building), a hacker in Flushing, Queens could deliver malicious payloads via the Home Shopping Network to a potential audience of 70,000 people per square kilometer. Or he could also hijack 10 different stations including CBS , NBC and Fox from a single antenna in the Inwood neighborhood of upper Manhattan that reaches 50,000 people per square kilometer. With a more powerful 25-watt amp (about $1,500) the hacker can cover more like 35 square kilometers, taking the reach of the attack into the hundreds of thousands of people.
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Huh? (Score:2)
Since this is SLashdot, I didn't bother reading the article - so, I am sure there is an obvious answer.
How does someone with a LOW BUDGET even have 10's of thousands of smart tv's in range of an RF signal?
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$250 for an 'amplifier' that reaches tens of thousands of people according to the article and paper.
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NYC and find a tall building.
Okay I'll be the one to say it (Score:2)
TVs have no business being on the internet, much less downloading stuff from Facebook. A TV is for watching television. How did we do it up to now, without the internet? Gee...
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A TV is for watching television.
I think it's for connecting game consoles, media players, and whatnot. But indeed, it has no business being "smart".
Re:Okay I'll be the one to say it (Score:5, Insightful)
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If space is a premium like it is in New York or other urban areas, a smart tv isn't bad value. Plus it frees up an HDMI socket. maybe Facebook integration is overboard but hulu and Netflix aren't going away for awhile. Neither is Plex or DLNA or Spotify or...
As an aside, what I really want from a smart tv is much smarter UI. I don't think I've seen a smart tv with a decent UI. Something that makes it easy to switch the inputs, change settings, etc. also implements CEC so I can turn on my consoles or whateve
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if your TV plays Netflix and Vudu, what is the point of upgrading?
DRM treadmill and wireless security (Score:3)
if your TV plays Netflix and Vudu, what is the point of upgrading?
For one thing, Netflix may choose to end compatibility with older devices that don't support the new digital restrictions management capabilities on which its licensors insist. For another, a TV that supports only WEP won't work anymore if you upgrade your house's wireless network to better WPA family protocols.
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If the hardware can do on chip decoding of content at the same resolution as the native resolution of the panel, and most other changes are software, then why would I need to upgrade the hardware?
Having it feel snappy and nice to use is a software problem
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If you think "space is at a premium" even in a 250 sq foot apartment, that a Smart TV is a good idea, then you are nuts.
You have a buttload of space on the back of that TV to put a Roku Box, and a Apple TV, and a XBMC box, and your Cable TV box Plus a HDMI switcher if you bought low end with less than 4 HDMI inputs. And if that space is really at a premium, then you also bought a universal remote and a IR extender so all the devices can be on the back of that TV out of the way and you have only one remote
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If this article is to be believed it's a horrible value. The only way I would take one is if you were paying me to dispose of it.
The article focuses on the idea of some random low-budget cracker using this, but that's missing the point entirely. It's *designed* to give the TV stations/Advertisers/Broadcasting and Marketing complex pwnership of your system from the start. Anything they send, your "smart" tv
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The issue regarding netflix and sports is a separate topic, IMO, that is a fact regardless of having smart TV built in or separate.
Whew! (Score:2)
Looks like I just escaped disaster by not owning a TV at all. Torrents, baby, torrents and streaming.
I honestly don't understand why people would buy a "smart" TV instead of a monitor, surround sound speakers, and plug it in to a laptop or computer. How many people really use OTA broadcasts nowadays?
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Looks like I just escaped disaster by not owning a TV at all.
Aren't you so special and clever.
Torrents, baby, torrents and streaming.
And proud to be a thief. How many legitimate sources of video are offered as torrents? I'd be interested in trying them myself.
I honestly don't understand why people would buy a "smart" TV instead of a monitor, surround sound speakers, and plug it in to a laptop or computer.
Then you're an idiot. Not everyone wants 3 or 4 different devices to do one simple thing. Not everyone wants to dick around keeping a computer working properly all the time.
How many people really use OTA broadcasts nowadays?
About 8% at last check, use OTA exclusively. Significantly more use a mix of OTA and other sources. So a significant number of people.
Of course if you weren't so busy trying
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I honestly don't understand why people would buy a "smart" TV instead of a monitor, surround sound speakers, and plug it in to a laptop or computer. How many people really use OTA broadcasts nowadays?
Yeah, because computers aren't susceptible to attacks at all. Everyone knows there's nothing more secure than keeping an internet-connected computer running 24/7 in your house.
Because of convenience (Score:2)
I honestly don't understand why people would buy a "smart" TV instead of a monitor, surround sound speakers, and plug it in to a laptop or computer.
Because not having a huge noisy tower next to the TV is more spouse-acceptable [wikipedia.org] than having one. Because people don't have to keep it updated with Windows updates and antivirus updates. Because a computer's out-of-the-box interface is designed to be navigated from a desk with a mouse and keyboard rather than from a recliner with a traditional TV remote control. Because people have trouble plugging in a cable box and a BD player [slashdot.org], let alone a computer. Because some people have tried to build a home theater PC
Can't just turn it off (Score:3)
I prefer my Roku 2/3 to the smart features on my TVs but it is difficult to buy a nicer TV these days without the "Smart" features included. It would be nice is if you could disable the "Smart" part of these TVs. I don't think I have seen that as an option but I guess you could just disable the networking.
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I don't think I have seen that as an option but I guess you could just disable the networking.
By which you mean don't plug it in, and don't give it your wifi password? It's not like these devices get to speak on your network without you taking action.
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You sit there and cry because we all know that ethernet cables are impossible to unplug once they are plugged in. DAMN THEM for making them a single use permanent item!
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Hey, I've met a few RJ45s that thought they were permanent. You know the ones, thick snag guard and clip side positioned where you need a lock pick set just to release it.
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Correct in my case and probably for most /. readers.
We all know that no manufacturer in their right minds would turn WiFi on by default and auto join any network possible. No consumer would ever have a WLAN configured to be wide open without a password. Nah, never happen. ;-)
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I can turn off HbbTV support on my Smart TV, no problem. In fact I had disabled it even before I realized it could be a security hazard, as it also slows down booting and channel switching, while providing no benefit to me whatsoever.
Budweiser Ad Hijacked, Viewers Directed to Miller (Score:2)
News at 11. Or is it...? (organ music) Dunnn Dunnn DUNNNNNN!!!
The article winds up with "Another fix would be to prompt users to press a button confirming their okay before an app launches on their TV, as well as regular reminders that apps are loading or running whenever they switch channels." Well, I don't look forward to having to click my remote to approve apps from my couch, but it's not exactly an emergency. Seems appropriate to wait for Miller Beer or Dr. Evil to actually execute the attempt first
Gee, who woulda thunk... (Score:5, Funny)
When you make cheap, shitty, under-engineered, non-compatible systems that can't be commodotized because everyone is banking on their propriety system taking off and cornering the market... that you'll end up with a cheap, shitty, under-engineered system with major security flaws?
Yet another reason why Smart TVs are worse than useless.
Here is the hardware to do the attack: (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.hides.com.tw/produc... [hides.com.tw]
This is an USB dongle, you push TS stream into it. Bundled Opencaster software will build TS stream for you. Basically its a small Digital TV station capable of transmitting one mux.
* DVB-T version, will not work with ATSC TVs in US. Btw LOL US and your ATSC A/53 mpeg2 "hd"tv.
Hi, I co-authored the paper :-) (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks for the comments. I hope I can clarify some of the things people said here.
Re popularity of OTA vs. cable: Cable is more popular in the US, but that's just the US. Digital Terrestrial is much more common in other places - for example it's the most popular delivery method in Europe by far (page 39) . [europa.eu] In the US immigrants use it a lot more than US-born.
To whomever suggested attacks via the remote control's IR port: that sounds a lot of fun to try, but the IR receiver's much less sensitive than the RF jack, it has a much lower data rate, and it needs line of sight.
About the power calculations: 1 Watt (0 dBm) can cover an area of 1.4 square Kilometers, under reasonable assumptions. The math is in the paper.
One last thing: A big shout-out to Martin Herfurt, whose work on HbbTV security [wordpress.com] was our starting point.
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About the power calculations: 1 Watt (0 dBm) can cover an area of 1.4 square Kilometers, under reasonable assumptions. The math is in the paper.
I hope the math in the paper is right, then, because 1 watt would be 30 dBm. A value of 0 dBm is 1 milliwatt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBm [wikipedia.org]
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Yep sorry. Mod parent tired.
Staples Easy Button? (Score:2)
I knew the Easy Button could do a lot of things but this is just incredible
Tell me again? (Score:3)
I'd rather spend the money on a basic TV with better picture quality and get the 'smart' part from what I connect to it (DVR in my case).
WTF? Everyone is missing the REAL problem here! (Score:2)
The problem isn't that someone can inject a fraudulent signal that does bad things. The problem is that THE OFFICIAL BROADCAST SIGNAL can include code that does bad things.
Just because code is part of a TV broadcast doesn't mean you should trust it. Just because code is part of a TV broadcast doesn't mean it should be able to hijack your stored internet credentials and automatically log into your account on any website, and take actions on those websites as if they were you, modify the content you see on th
So if I don't like my neighbour.... (Score:2)
I can use a cheap, low powered transmitter to get his TV to download child porn, get out the pop corn and wait for Internal Affairs to raid his house?
Seems unlikely (Score:2)
TFA mentions NTSC. "t’s on the verge of mass adoption in the U.S. as it was recently added to NTSC standards used in North America." NTSC was the obsolete low-def video format that's no longer used. It's DEAD. HDTV is the ATSC standard. These *TSC acronyms are mutually exclusive. So right off the bat, the article is on shaky ground.
This "hack" seems like an uncommon scenario, as top-of-the-line "smart" TVs tend to be owned by relatively affluent and as such, the cash-stocked user is probab