Web-Enabled TVs Ripe For Hacking

 title=It’s going to get harder and harder to buy a new TV that doesn’t offer Internet connectivity in the coming years. Which means that more and more people are going to have televisions susceptible to hacking. We’re doomed.

An article in today’s Australian IT quotes Adrian Turner from software device security firm Mocana pointing out that the security on these internet-enabled TVs is either poor or non-existant, which means hackers will be able to fairly easily steal personal information from the television.

“The types of vulnerability we documented were an ability to intercept traffic moving from a TV to a back-end service, the ability to replace icons on the TV, and have those icons point at a different service, so I could put in place a bogus icon for a service.

“It could be injecting a screen that says this is Foxtel or whoever your cable company is and please re-enter your credit card information in order to continue your service.”

Turner is calling for manufacturers of internet-enabled TVs to do more on the security front, but so far the demands are falling on deaf ears.

It’s an interesting conundrum. With the NBN destined to bring faster network speeds enabling more and more IPTV content delivered directly to the TV, there’s no doubt that the screen is going to become a target for hackers. Most likely, anti-virus software makers will develop protective widgets and programs for the different smart TV platforms, but it will be a while before they become available.

[Australian IT]