This Android TV we love isn’t new, as Google’s operating system for TV-connected devices is very complete and allows us to access the wide range of applications through the Play Store. Plus, we have quite a few options to choose from despite the fact that it’s not without its flaws.
However, the cheapest Android TVs and devices come from Chinese manufacturers, who face a difficult problem: malware. Be careful if you have an Android TV with one of these processors, you could expose your information.
The gateway is the processor
Maybe you’ve read the names AllWinner or RockChip and don’t know what we’re talking about. Well they’re about two processor manufacturersprimarily aimed at cheap Android TV devices that are flooding electronic stores like Amazon.
Probably, if you like Android TV on a device with these characteristics, you have been guided by the many positive reviews that users leave on the web. In fact, these are enough devices to take advantage of streaming platforms, but now we know that they were hiding a secret.
These, according to security researchers picked up by TechCrunch, come preloaded with malware with the ability to launch coordinated attacks. It all started when a user, Daniel Milisic, discovered how his AllWinnet T95 chip-based decoder was communicating with command and control servers, waiting at all times for instructions on what to do.
Posted on GitHub, it showed how his model connected to a network of robots as well as thousands of other Android TV devices around the world. According to the user, the malware is nothing more than a clickbotWhat earn money with ad clicks. Everything happens in the background, so we wouldn’t see this activity. Thus, these Android TVs were connecting to servers, just as they were powered on, to get instructions from the malware, causing fraudulent use.
The problem is not just in the detected behavior, but if they want, “the authors can send any payload”, by modifying the running task. Another security researcher, attached to the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) maintains that other similar devices also contain the malwarelike AllWinner T95Max, RockChip X12 Plus.
We as users cannot remove this virus or malware. If you think your device is affected, it’s best to stop using it.
The actual size of it is unknown. botnet, but we know that it is possible to use it for other malicious purposes: cryptocurrency mining, data theft and exploitation of users’ bandwidth to bombard websites. Milisic successfully shut down the malware monitoring servers by contacting the ISP. Of course, he warns that it can “come back at any time with new infrastructure”.
For the average user, there is no easy way to remove this malwareTherefore, getting rid of those boxes containing Android TV could be a good option. From there, the corrective measures would pass by “the requirement of a greater requirement of the sellers”.
Through | Tech Crunch
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