Smart TV Infected With Malware And Gets Bricked

Smart TVs seem like a great idea. After all the ability to do more on your TV, like surf the web, play games, use apps, and etc. seems like a win-win situation, doesn’t it? Unfortunately this also means that your TVs are also vulnerable to malware infections, which is what happened to a family member of one user by the name of Darren Cauthon.

In his tweet (via Android Police), it seems that Cauthon has reported that a family member’s smart TV got infected with Android malware, and because of that the TV has been bricked and is essentially unusable. It also seems that LG is unwilling to disclose how to factory reset the TV, which means that this is now a very expensive unusable piece of equipment.

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Family member’s tv is bricked by Android malware. #lg wont disclose factory reset. Avoid these “smart tvs” like the plague. pic.twitter.com/kNz9T1kA0p

— Darren Cauthon (@darrencauthon) December 25, 2016

It has also been revealed that the malware infecting the TV is that this is a ransomware, and as you can see in the photo, the hackers are asking for $500 to unlock the device via a phony FBI notice. This is an alternative to LG’s offering which is a $340 service visit, although it is possible that maybe for a TV that’s about 3-4 years old, it could just be cheaper to buy a new one.

In any case we guess this just demonstrates one of the pitfalls of owning a smart device in this day and age. After all who would have figured that one day malware on our TVs would be something we would have to worry about, right?

Tyler Lee
Categories: Gadgets
Tags: Malware, Security, TVs