May 20, 2013
News 12 at 11 o'clock / Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW) -- There are big screens and flat screens, but there is no screen quite like the Samsung Smart TV.
"It's kind of of like going to the movies," said April Ramos as she reclined in her chair. "You can watch Netflix on it, you can Skype, you can play some games on it."
The Samsung Smart TV is the mack daddy of televisions, which is why Ramos bought one last summer. She never considered the possibility that personal information and privacy could be at risk because of the new high-tech device sitting in her living room.
Here are some ways to protect your privacy on a smart TV:
Just a few months ago, a hacking group demonstrated how someone could gain access into the Samsung Smart TVs. A hole in the Samsung Smart TV could potentially allow hackers to gain access to sensitive information through your TV. Even more scary, the hackers could gain access to the camera on your TV to watch you.
"Samsung has said they are aware of the problem and they are going to fix it," said Philip Ross with Computer Exchange.
"They could get in and pretty much view the camera 24/7 if they wanted to," he said.
Chase Woodhams, a 20-year-old engineer, has also been hacking since he was 13 years old.
"This is the first step right here. I would actually have to crack her wireless password," he showed us on his laptop.
Woodhams told us anything that connects to the Internet can be hacked, including your smart TV.
"Do you know if your Internet password and all of that is pretty protected?" News 12's Elizabeth Owens asked Ramos.
"Oh yes, very protected," Ramos answered.
We asked Woodhams if he could hack into her Internet. It only took him 15 minutes to access it. He did not go any further.
"Whether it's worth my time? Probably not. Not unless you have $100,000 in your account and I know your account information is going to be on there," he said.
It may not be worth his time as a hacker to break into her smart TV, but he says there others who would benefit from watching her through her television.
"Like what you're eating while you're watching TV, even what furniture you have in your house, they could access your Web cam and look at the types of furniture you have," he said.
Data that could be used for advertising purposes.
"It's kind of creepy," Ramos said.
However, she may have unknowingly given the green light for spying with just a click of her remote.
"Anytime you install an app or a new piece of software on your computer, you always have to sign a terms and agreement," Woodhams said.
Samsung's Terms and Agreement states:
"... Please remember that there is always some risk in transmitting information electronically prior to our collection. The personal information we collect is stored within databases that we control."
"It makes me wonder should I be with my clothes on at all times?" Ramos said half-jokingly.
Samsung says it's working on a patch to fix the issue. The company did not respond to a request for more information from WRDW.
Here are some ways to protect your privacy on a smart TV:
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Kaspersky Lab warns users about the emergence online of a new version of the Gpcode ransomware program.
The program spreads via malicious websites and P2P networks.
Kaspersky Lab products detect the program as Trojan-Ransom.Win32.Gpcode.ax.
You can read more on our blog.
Kaspersky Lab is monitoring a new email worm which is currently spreading. Emails spreading the worm say “Here you have” in the subject line.
We detect the worm as Email-Worm.Win32.VBMania.
While the servers hosting related downloads have been taken down, we are keeping customers updated and protected against any new variants.
Net-Worm.Win32.Kido exploits a critical vulnerability (MS08-067) in Microsoft Windows to spread via local networks and removable storage media.
The worm disables system restore, blocks access to security websites, and downloads additional malware to infected machines.
Users are strongly recommended to ensure their antivirus databases are up to date. A patch for the vulnerability is available from Microsoft.
Detailed descriptions of Net-Worm.Win32.Kido.bt, Net-Worm.Win32.Kido.dv and Net-Worm.Win32.Kido.fx are available in the Virus Encyclopaedia. A dedicated removal tool is available here.
The new Gpcode variant encrypts files with extensions DOC, TXT, PDF, XLS, JPG, PNG, CPP, H etc. on hard drives using an RSA algorithm with a 1024-bit key.
After encrypting files, the virus leaves a text file in the folder next to the encrypted files with following message:
Currently, we detect the new variant, but we are unable to crack the 1024-bit key. Our analysts are continuing to work on both the key and the virus to resolve this issue.
Kaspersky Lab recommends that all Internet users enable maximum protection from malicious code and network attacks on their computers, refrain from executing suspicious programs received from untrustworthy sources and back up any important information on their computers.
Detection of Virus.Win32.Gpcode.ak was added to Kaspersky Anti-Virus signature databases yesterday, on June 4th, at 15:39 GMT. Please make sure to update if you haven’t already.
If you have fallen victim to Gpcode.ak, try to contact us using another computer connected to the Internet. DO NOT RESTART or POWER DOWN the potentially infected machine. Contact us by email stopgpcode@kaspersky.com and tell us the exact date and time of infection, as well everything you did on the computer in the 5 minutes before the machine was infected: which programs you have executed, which websites you have visited, etc. We'll try and help you recover any data that has been encrypted.
For more information about the malicious program, please read our weblog.
A few hours before this point, there was a noticeable increase in mail traffic of an earlier modification of Warezov - Warezov.do which featured in the October 2006 Top 20.
If you are using Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 or Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0 with Proactive Protection turned on, new variants will be detected without the need to update your antivirus databases.
A full description of Email-Worm.Win32.Warezov.nf is now available in the Virus Encyclopaedia.
