Your LG TV Might Be Spying on Your Entire Network While You Think It's Turned Off

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/51634640

A new Gamers Nexus investigation found a retail LG TV actively scanning the local network for phones, laptops, smartwatches and other connected devices, while also capturing microphone audio when the screen appeared to be in standby. The investigation found voice data being stored locally even after the TV was disconnected from the network, with the queued data uploaded once connectivity returned. Researchers also uncovered webOS vulnerabilities that could potentially turn the television into a remotely controlled surveillance device. The really unsettling part isn’t just the advertising angle. It’s the fact that a consumer television can sit inside your trusted network, enumerate other devices, access a microphone, store collected data locally and communicate with external infrastructure. Put that same device in a corporate office, hospital, hotel or conference room and the security implications become considerably more serious. I went through the investigation in detail, including the network scanning, microphone behavior, ACR, webOS attack surface, offline data collection and practical mitigations

It’s not just LG. It’s all of them.

And, the cheaper the TV, the more often and intrusive these settings are.

It’s honestly better to just have a bare wall and a projector.

It’s honestly better to just have a bare wall and a projector.

Consumer projectors come with the same “smart” shit as TVs these days. Just don’t connect either to WiFi. Problem solved.

Apparently not solved. They can connect to open (and hidden) networks without your consent.

Per the marketing chief at LG; (paraphrased, from memory) “we own the glass, and we know everything beyond the glass.”

They can connect to open (and hidden) networks without your consent.

That’s a wild claim and either I accidentally skipped a paragraph in the article or you should cite a source. Quick googling doesn’t show up anything of that sort for me.

Look for articles about amazons sidewalk network and devices that connect to it without any kind of authorization from users.

That shit has been around since the echo came out and it’s open to any manufacturer.

There’s are lots of articles but my phone is too slow to load them at the moment.