Malware Easily Bricked The Smart TV Running Google TV
There’s a good chance you don’t remember Google’s own smart TV platform called Google TV, but although this was pretty much a failure, there still are people out there who actually bought devices running it.
The number of TVs powered by Google TV, however, is declining, and this Christmas, for example, at least one smart TV went dark unexpectedly.
Darren Cauthon took to Twitter to reveal that his LG smart TV running Google TV was infected with malware when his family tried to install a movie streaming application. Judging from the photo he posted, this looks like a form of ransomware which requires him to pay to have access to the device restored.
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But since the ransomware wasn’t necessarily developed for TVs, but for Android devices such as tablets and smartphones, it’s now completely bricked and no workaround seems to be able to restore it. Booting obviously leads to the same ransomware notification and other options are not available given the limited input on a TV.
The only thing that could work, however, is flashing the stock firmware, which could only be possible with the firmware image provided by LG. Oddly enough, LG isn’t willing to help the owner remove the ransomware from his TV unless he pays, and according to his tweets, he could easily buy a new TV with the money that the company is asking for servicing.
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The cost of removing the malware by flashing the stock firmware is $340, which, given the fact that this is an old TV running a platform that’s no longer supported, makes absolutely no sense.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that all smart TVs in general, or smart TVs running Android in particular, are bad because this kind of thing shouldn’t normally happen anyway, at least when owners stay away from apps they don’t trust.
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