Slashdot Mirror
Samsung TVs Can Be Hacked Into Endless Restart Loop
Gunkerty Jeb writes "Italian security researcher Luigi Auriemma was trying to play a trick on his brother when he accidentally discovered two vulnerabilities in all current versions of Samsung TVs and Blu-Ray systems that could allow an attacker to gain remote access to those devices. Auriemma claims that the vulnerabilities will affect all Samsung devices with support for remote controllers, and that the vulnerable protocol is on both TVs and Blu-Ray enabled devices. One of the bugs leads to a loop of endless restarts while the other could cause a potential buffer overflow."
Haha! I broke your TV!
My parents recently got a 52" Internet connected Samsung TV. Any way I could use this to replace the crap Samsung apps with something better?
On the up side you can't be inundated with endless commercials if your TV is in an endless restart loop ;-)
I remember back in the good old days when Linux wasn't configured to automatically start in X. So I did what I have done a hundred times before, edit the inittab file. However for some reason that day I was thinking that init level 6 was the init level to Start X in... /dev/hda1 -t ext2 /mnt /mnt/etc/inittab /mnt
Well at least I had a bootable CD.
# mount
# vi
(changed it to 5)
# umount
# sync; sync; sync; reboot
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I throw it from the top of a building.
So the hack just tunes the TV to Dave, then? :)
Sounds like a bad case of windows update.
Where we had dumped carburetors for computer-controlled engines, but they didn't need to get updates, and those updates weren't wirelessly and remotely pushed?
Where we had dumped cathode ray tubes for flat, liquid crystal displays, but hadn't put the tubes back into TV by stuffing the Internet (and viruses) into them?
Where we had dumped both rotary and touch tone land line phones for cellular phones that could do most anything you'd want them to, and you carry it whereever you went, but you didn't have to have an antivirus running on the phone and didn't have to worry about your contact details being sent to Nigeria?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
So now that TVs restart, I'm guessing malware isn't far behind?
After all, if you expect to turn every household device into a typical computer, you're also gonna drag the bad things computers have.
Can we 'regedit' tvs so we can use our own splash logos?
All glory to Arstotzka!
TV's will eventually have cameras in the front, could be a good method of surveillance.
In Soviet Russia, TV watches you!
The vulnerability is originally disclosed here, not in the posted link.
This vulnerability only works from the same broadcast domain where the TV is, since the remote control protocol relies on broadcast messages to announce the service. This means that your TV cannot be cracked from the Internet. Let's hope that Samsung apply a fix soon, in any case.
I own two Samsung Blu-Ray players. I'm not surprised by this in the slightest. You can usually judge the security of an app by how reliably it does its intended function, and their Blu-Ray players are anything but reliable. (Their older TVs work well, but I've never used one of their newer, networked TVs, which I'm assuming are as buggy as their Blu-Ray players.)
For example:
And so on. In short, Samsung's software quality control appears to be utterly awful. So hearing that they have security holes is almost as surprising as hearing that Flash has security holes....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
This does eliminate the age old IT question, "Did you try turning it off and on again?"
Since Buffer overflows and similar flaws are what allow devices like the iPad to be jailbroken...does this mean that I could install Linux on my Samsung TV potentially?
Why is this such big news? Did you know you can replace the entire firmware inside your TV too? There's already a group working on getting something usable onto Samsung TVs like these: http://www.samygo.tv/
If that TV is exploitable, I can finally get my neighbors to stop watching Mexican variety shows at full volume at all hours of the night.
I was working for a company that was trying to develop an App for Samsung's Internet@TV. Twice we had to get the TV RMAd because we bricked it while messing around with the remote control protocol.
fscking reruns
Table-ized A.I.
Italy is far, far away.
include a reduction in empty consumerism, more time spent with families, a decrease in childhood obesity and a more rational approach to politics.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Get Of My Lawn!!!
Just shouldn't be connected to the internet. There is really no good cause to connect your TV or Blu-ray to the internet. Instead, use a purpose built device like an AppleTV. I'll admit, the remote exploit is funny
Consider:
Similarly, a computer monitor should not have a built in computer (or vice versa), unless the computer is a replaceable module. The TV or Monitor still have a lot of lifetime (and economic value) long after the computer is hopelessly obsolete. (Yes, I'm looking at you, iMac integrated computer and monitor. But then Apple products seem to be for people with more money then sense.)
- - - - - - -
All that is necessary for Apple to triumph is for Google men to do nothing.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
This trick will be great for watching Groundhog Day!
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Samsung Means To Come
(Sound Recommended)
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
This has Gary Larson written all over it.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
mario is gonna be so pissed off when he finds out
If you wait a few months, you'll probably have a capacitor die in the power supply and it'll stop rebooting.
Supply and demand means that TVs will be cheaper than monitors even if you don't use the extra stuff. If you want higher resolution, then you can look at big computer monitors but they're going to be more expensive than a TV of the same size.
I'd love to get a Dell U3011:
30" monitor, IPS, 2560 x 1600
2 HDMI, 2 DVI-D, 1 DisplayPort, 1 VGA, builtin 4-port USB hub and card reader.
Roughly $1000.
They want to be able to advertise "with builtin netflix support!". Combine that with the fact that most people can't hook up their own cable box, and you have answered your own question.
Then after another five seconds, he claims, the TV automaticall restarts. Then the process repeats itself forever, even after unplugging the TV. Eventually, Auriemma managed to reset the TV in service mode.
Boot loops even when disconnected from power?
Either Samsung has secretly perfected OTA power transmission, or this is a load of crap. Then again, the writer refers to a punk kid dicking with his brother's TV as an "Italian security researcher," so I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
For those who didn't RTFA, each IP based remote has a name string included in the message. If that name contains a linefeed or other invalid character, the TV will go into the endless loop.
It can be recovered by going into "service mode", but apparently Samsung doesn't consider that to be an end-user procedure sinmce incorrect settings enetred there will brick the TV.
the "internet enabled TV" is another case of "feature phone syndrome." there are no "features" because it's all a walled garden of the Telco's choosing, and everything is another ten bucks a month, forever.
my year-old Samsung LCD is slaved to Yahoo TV streaming. hooo-kay, and if it would have said "Won Hyuk Yuk Yuk" it would make no difference. generic Brand X, forget it.
I haven't plugged into the router because if there are no updates per the web site, and no streaming services to be using, the only thing left for the TV to become is a bot for some murderous spam king. and I want to watch TV on it.
pah. stupid marketers.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Now there will be something good to watch on TV.
why can't they hack cable / sat box for Free HBO now that will be fun and maybe force the cable co's to update there POS software.
If you're broke like me, you're still living in the golden age.
For the first time in close to 15 years of daily Slashdot "reading" I not only laughed out loud when I read a comment, but I applauded at the same time.
I would have given you +10 if I'd spit coffee out my nose (which would have been really weird, since I haven't had coffee for over 10 days).
So, it's not a little problem, and it's not a big problem ; it's that best of classes of problem, Someone Else's Problem.
Unless, of course, you've got a TV with WiFi.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"