Researchers from Columbia University say that smart tv devices which are suitable for the HbbTV protocol, and that digital tv signals over the air, receive, imperceptibly attacked by hackers.
HbbTV is a protocol adopted by many European broadcasters, including the Dutch NPO is used to transfer html-code to the tv signal to add. This allows modern smart-tv’s extra content show that the internet is disconnected, but the researchers say that tv viewers in the digital tv signal from the ether picking, risk. Hackers would the HbbTV-signal can be manipulated. In theory, it would be in the Netherlands for example, the dvb-t signal are vulnerable to manipulation.
This would be possible by the digital tv signal with an antenna in a high position to pick up the HbbTV content to manipulate by, for example, urls change, and this signal again to transmit. Smart tv’s that on the manipulated channel tuning, would the code automatically and silently execute without the user clicking the red button on the remote control need to press. The viewer must be on the same channel tuned remain.
With the attack according to the classic man-in-the-middle method allows attackers to not only, for example, sociaalnetwerkdiensten take over, but they may, according to the researchers also try to vulnerable systems on the home network. Another option is to have built-in webcams and microphones into a tv to activate. By a powerful antenna in, for example, a city may use a relatively large area to be covered, while the attacker almost impossible, writes Forbes.
The researchers have in december last year and their findings is presented and a demonstration of an attack presented to the organization behind the HbbTV standard, but this would be the vulnerability as insufficiently serious have seen to the specification, which is now also in the US, is implemented in the atsc standard, to adapt. Also suggested to the framers of the HbbTV standard that the attack is too expensive compared of any revenue. The researchers suggest, however, that an antenna of a few hundred dollars is enough to make an attack on thousands of vulnerable tv’s to perform. Also, the required software are quite easy to program.
In June last year went to German researchers, is also the call about flaws in HbbTV. They came in a number of Samsung tv’s various vulnerabilities against which it is possible to create a device, for example as a bitcoin-miner by the injection of javascript.
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