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Hackers Are Taking Over Chromecasts To Promote a YouTube Channel (theverge.com)
In what is being referred to as CastHack, hackers j3ws3r and HackerGiraffe are promoting Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg by forcing TVs to display a message encouraging people to subscribe to his YouTube channel. "The hack takes advantage of a router setting that makes smart devices, like Chromecasts and Google Homes, publicly viewable on the internet," reports The Verge. "The attackers are then able to gain control of the devices and broadcast videos on a connected TV." From the report: A website for the attack claims to count the number of TVs forced to show the PewDiePie message and currently says more than 3,000 have been affected. While it's not clear that this is an accurate number (it has reset several times), a number of people posted on Reddit that the video had appeared on their TV. Google tells The Verge it has received reports from people who had "an unauthorized video played on their TVs via a Chromecast device," but said the issue was the result of router settings. Both HackerGiraffe and Google told The Verge the best way for affected users to fix the issue is to turn off Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) on their routers. The two hackers said they were behind a hack in November that forced printers around the world to print out sheets of paper telling people to subscribe to PewDiePie.
This story of spammers trying to drum up support for the incumbent puerile attention whore of youtube almost makes me think that the Iranian social media crackdown will do them some good.
And that takes some doing. Good work guys.
Why does Chroecast open up a port, any port, to the whole wide internet? To the point where it's even uPnP compatible,, not just for network local devices...
What purpose does that serve? When did that seem like a good idea?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Does YouTube not have a way to fine or otherwise punish this twerp for promoting himself like this?
So the obvious thing would be to unsubscribe from PewDiePie on mass
Failing that just terminate the account altogether.
I bet that after that some manufacturers will finally take security seriously.
iTS' bett3r than being hacked by CH1n4.
1) DISABLE UPNP NOW! It has to be one of the largest security risks possible on a home network.
2) Shame on google for using UPnP to forward a port that allows remote control of the chromecast device. What purpose does this serve?
3) Can PewDiePie just go away already? If you can't keep your subscriber count up by posting worthwhile content then just go away. Youtube should revoke all the subscribers him and his ilk have managed to gain for him by spamming and ramming PewDiePie down everyone's throat.
PewDiePie needs to let's play don't drop the soap
PewDiePie can pay for an private attorney an public defender may be to over worked to put up a good case.
under hacking / other laws PewDiePie is guilty of an crime? and seeing how he makes an profit off of this and maybe even theft of services as some people are changed for data usage.
These kids are still nothing but s'kiddies, but hey, clickbait is clickbait. And BeauHD likes the "hackers!" clickbait too.
Can this hack be prevented through the use of HOST FILES?
Kinda hard to charge PewDiePie for the actions of HackerGiraffe and j3ws3r. Also, they basically just included an ad for his channel in a notification about an insecure device.
1. That's somewhat of a benign way to find out that you're vulnerable to a specific attack vector. 2. While PewDiePie is definitely obnoxious, the present culture of deplatforming is an order of magnitude worse. It's the soft version of the 'societal score' that China gives people atm, and to be quite fucking honest, there are very few people who can be bothered to pay attention to this particular culture war.
by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 )
under hacking / other laws PewDiePie is guilty of an crime?
Subscribe to Joe_Dragon!
So under hacking laws, is Joe_Dragon guilty of a crime? If so, lets hope the above meme doesn't catch on for your sake.
only if he willfully and knowing endorses the actions
not swedish douche
I am Joe_Dragon and I approve this message
I really don't care to watch PewDiePie at all (I tried a little, once).
However the actions of his hacking subscription army exposing the absolute dismal state of the Internet Of Thangs has me absolutely cheering him on and wishing for more, and more and more similar activity until even the least technical person says "wait a minute" to installing new network connected devices.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And this is what is wrong with the internet, these devices require shit like this.
No, fuck you and your smart device which demands an insecure network.
Fucking hell people are idiots. Publicly viewable on the internet? Really? Is this 1998?
an private attorney an public defender may be to over worked
Someone call the cops, this guy's had his skull smashed in with a meat tenderizer.
Nazi troll is trolling like a nazi
Yay gulag!!!1!! Moar gulag now!!!?!!!?!!
PewDiePie can pay for an private attorney an public defender may be to over worked to put up a good case.
He can't pay for bodyguards for all of the little shits that pay his wages, and this will turn out to be his weakness.
YOUTUBE NEED TO BAN PEWDIESHIT IMMEDIATELY
this a$$hole even promote all those hacks in his videos, he is the new internet cancer and spreads more and more hacks
"hackers"
Funny how much money PewDiePie makes from ads on his channel.
Bet these are a couple of hired guys.
Here we go again. Thanks UPnP!
- ViXiV Technologies
I've never watched his channel, but all I see are reports of these pathetic attempts to get people to watch him and the occasional attempt mention of his supposedly ironic racism (hey, it's still racism).
Sorry, but how can youtube keep facilitating this sort of thing ? (for the $).
Remember when google had was all about "don't be evil" ?
That seems like a long time ago now.
What disturbingly pathetic losers, risking jail to massage the fragile ego of self promoting flunkee.
Why would one buy a connected device and connect it to the internet? It's legacy and will be unpatched after a year or two.
That smart fridge you bought may last 10 years which is 8 years longer than any security fixes.
Anti-pollution and buying excessive amounts of electronics are in contradiction.
Yeah I tried once, just so I could work out what the f*** the kids where on about.
Nope, definately a dad moment for me. Like , 30+ years ago my father being genuinely mystified as to why I liked Iron maiden so much when the Beatles and Elvis where soooooo hip! Yeah, thats me, 30+ years later wondering what the hell the little ones see in this jibbering incoherent walking-mess of a man playing video games.
Oh well, one day she'll have her own kids and be baffled as fuck at them. I guess its the cycle of life.
But I guess if people actually go and check their router settings, thats something resembling a net positive in the state of affairs
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
It sounds like it isn't Chromecast that opens the port, it's some other malware that the user downloaded and executed on a different computer.
It's just that once the attacker got the victims to run their malware (why do people just run whatever the fuck you give them?!) it chose the Chromecast to use to demonstrate the compromise to the user. But it could have been any other service that the user happens to have on their LAN. Chromecasts are "neater" to exploit, though, in the sense that the victim will see a physical manifestion right away, on the particular black mirror that they happen to gaze at most often.
It's all about the memes now, Pewds doesn't play games much anymore.
Is both /. and theVerge articles (I know /. is aggregator) both dont even tell what the vulnerability is and how people are affected... I had to look it up elsewhere to find what the stupid vulnerability is... UPNP if anyone wondered... but bad implementation so if you own cheap wifi equipment I guess you're probably vulnerable.