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back to article Vast botnet hijacks smart TVs for prime-time cybercrime

Security researchers have pinned a DDoS botnet that's infected potentially millions of smart TVs and set-top boxes to an eight-year-old cybercrime syndicate called Bigpanzi. At least 170,000 bots were running daily at the campaign's height after infecting Android-based TVs and other streaming hardware via pirated apps and …

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  1. Mage Silver badge
    Devil

    Smart TVs are dumb.

    I'd connect my laptop to the TV if I want internet content on it.

    6 3 Reply
    1. MatthewSt Silver badge
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      Re: Smart TVs are dumb.

      Sadly they're also convenient. I used to feel exactly the same: raspberry pi under the TV, IR sensor wired in etc. Then the SD card died and we used the functionality of the (relatively cheap) TV "just until I fix it"... And we've never looked back.

      It supports all the free and paid for streaming services, has a dlna browser on it, and supports screen mirroring.

      It may well be hacking everyone, but it gets unplugged when not in use so can't be doing that much damage...!

      2 1 Reply
      1. sabroni Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Sadly they're also convenient.

        Cool. If my experience is anything to go by then the APIs supporting that convenient front end will be EOL'd in the next year or so though, and at that point it suddenly stops being convenient and just becomes redundant.

        I don't know what they don't keep the old APIs running.

        Maybe because they want you to buy a new "smart" TV?

        2 0 Reply
  2. everyone_but_the_girl

    But does it make a giant mess for newspaper nerds? Hit my bot bot again! Oh! My brother's got the other one.

    0 3 Reply
  3. david1024

    Tv should not have internet

    This is a great case to support using STB and upgrading frequently, or just using a HT-PC both behind an updated FW.

    1 1 Reply
  4. JessicaRabbit

    Doesn't sound like they're attacking externally facing vulnerabilities in the TV to infect them so much as attacking the vulnerability in the dumb meatware operating the TVs (though once the app is installed it does sound like there's some jailbreaking going on to escape the app sandbox).

    5 0 Reply
    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge
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      Yes, that's what the description in the article implies. Doesn't mean "smart" TVs are any less of a stupid idea, though.

      3 1 Reply

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