Samsung and LG vow to remove 'botnet' apps from their smart TV app stores that turned sets into an AI scraping machines — but the shocking claim that over 40% of webOS apps had botnet code raises the question of how things ever got this bad
- Malware botnets route traffic through the internet connection on many smart TVs
- Roku, Fire TV, Tizen and webOS all affected
- Some manufacturers are removing affected apps
LG, Samsung, Roku and Fire TV televisions and devices may have been part of a malicious "botnet" — and millions of TVs could be affected, though LG and Samsung have committed to removing the relevant apps,
FlatpanelsHD rounded up pieces of this puzzle, stretching back several months. Back in April, it emerged that many apps and games included a feature called "residential proxy" that could be abused by bad actors.
One example, IPIDEA, had enlisted millions of smart TVs in a network that could crawl the web for AI training or even carry out coordinated attacks by groups in China, North Korea, Iran and Russia.
The TVs were being used to bypass IP range blocks that affected AI data centers: because each...
Copyright of this story solely belongs to www.techradar.com. To see the full text click HERE
