Samsung TVs Can Be Hacked Into Endless Restart Loop 187
Gunkerty Jeb writes "Italian security researcher Luigi Auriemma was trying to play a trick on his brother when he accidentally discovered two vulnerabilities in all current versions of Samsung TVs and Blu-Ray systems that could allow an attacker to gain remote access to those devices. Auriemma claims that the vulnerabilities will affect all Samsung devices with support for remote controllers, and that the vulnerable protocol is on both TVs and Blu-Ray enabled devices. One of the bugs leads to a loop of endless restarts while the other could cause a potential buffer overflow."
Re:Great trick (Score:5, Informative)
Re:TV (Score:5, Informative)
Original article and scope (Score:5, Informative)
The vulnerability is originally disclosed here [aluigi.org], not in the posted link.
This vulnerability only works from the same broadcast domain where the TV is, since the remote control protocol relies on broadcast messages to announce the service. This means that your TV cannot be cracked from the Internet. Let's hope that Samsung apply a fix soon, in any case.
Given that the TVs are running Linux... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Init Level 6 (Score:5, Informative)
Runlevel 5 is the typical X level. You switch to runlevel 6 to reboot the system. [wikipedia.org]
So you set inittab to default to level 6 when you want to incur general rage and butthurt with a restart loop. :D
Re:TV (Score:3, Informative)
You can look at any website, not sure what you are talking about.
Re:Great trick (Score:5, Informative)
(or ____ forbid their debit card)
And?
Unless you have a very terrible bank and/or don't bother checking your account ever, this isn't exactly a big deal. I just went through this a few weeks ago, when yonder random payment processor got owned hardcore.
Checked my account - like I do regularly, and found a weird charge. Called up my bank, said, "What is this I don't even?" Bam. Charge killed, money returned, new card in the mail, before I could even say, "Wow, you guys aren't nearly as evil as the Internet led me to believe."
Of course, I suppose the fact that I actually bother checking my account activity regularly makes me some sort of Fiscal Wizard compared to your average person. :p
Re:Great trick (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Great trick (Score:4, Informative)