Do you think that with the massive jumps that technology has made over the past years, we seem to live in a world where there is less and less privacy? So much so that anything that comes with a built-in camera could possibly be exploited in a manner where it could be recording whatever it sees without you commanding it to. Similar to smartphones, Smart TVs can also be hacked and compromised. In fact, at the Black Hat security conference, researchers Aaron Grattafiori and Josh Yavor showed the masses how various 2012 models of Samsung Smart TVs had vulnerabilities within which could be taken advantage of, including turning on the camera, controlling of social media apps such as Facebook or Skype, and accessing the slew of files and app on the Smart TV itself.
Grattafiori said, “Because the TV only has a single user, any type of compromise into an application or into Smart Hub, which is the operating system — the smarts of the TV — has the same permission as every user, which is, you can do everything and anything.” n a nutshell, the hacker would have gained full control of your TV. The weak link to cause all this? Javascript or HTML5 which remains vulnerable to traditional unsophisticated, and just in case you want to remain safe and sound from your Smart TV’s camera, just place a piece of non-transparent tape over it.