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Programmer Finds Way To Liberate Ransomware Affected Smart TV, Thanks To LG (theregister.co.uk)
Television production factory LG has saved Darren Cauthon's new year by providing hidden reset instructions to liberate his Google TV from ransomware. From a report on The Register: The company initially demanded more money than the idiot box was worth to repair the TV and relented offering instructions for resetting the telly after Cauthon took to Twitter to express his displeasure. The infection came after the programmer's wife downloaded an app to the TV promising free movies. Instead, it installed the ransomware, with a demand of US$500 to have the menace removed. Cauthon said LG offered factory reset steps which are not publicly revealed nor known to its customer support technicians. He says a family member showed him the TV over Christmas laden with ransomware purporting to be a FBI message bearing a notice that suspicious files were found and the user has been fined.
Welcome all to a world where you don't own nor are allowed to alter the software on items you purchased outright. Be glad that you can still begrudgingly get the information you need on some products to restore an item to factory condition. Remember, only criminals want to tamper with the perfection companies provide. Want to modify something? Be prepared for jail time.
I am still trying to figure out why the person's profession or skill set even matters in this story?
"LG gives user unpublished reset instructions" is more appropriate of a title.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
It will probably get harder and harder to find a TV without these "smart" features. If you don't want them, just don't give the TV your wifi password.
We are fast approaching a time where the TV will come with built in cellular data, and lifetime subscription (for specific uses). I've already seen several devices that have this scheme... for example a 'cloud punch clock'.
You might have to enter your wifi password to stream 4k from netflix, but it might send its telemetry, get advertising updates, firmware updates, and its cloud 'siri/cortana/google voice recognition stuff' via a separate always-on cellular network connection.
The price of the chipset itself is small in a $2000+ TV; and the cost of prepaid data measured at likely less than 500MB per years for 10 years, bought at wholesale for a million TVs at once... well... that's also going to be pretty small.
Right now the IoT is at least theoretically constrained to our wifi and runs through our firewalls. But we're fast approaching the time where it's just directly connected to the carrier bypassing our home networks entirely.
Indeed, our home networks themselves may become a nerd relic, the way home servers are. Your computer connects to the cloud, your printer connects to the cloud, your TV connects to the cloud... who needs a LAN? Sure a LAN would be faster... but once its good enough the average user will be happy to forgo having to maintain a home network in exchange for 'it just connects to the cloud'.