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GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

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Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#11

Post by rickdeckard »

Thanks for the write-up, it reflects my own impression of the video.

The video is quite a mixed set of topics mangled together, which is a pity because IMO a cleaner separation would be more beneficial to get the point across.

They should have decided to set the focus on a specific area and then present every finding around that, i.e.:

1. The Ad data-collecting platform TV-manufacturers are operating, what data they collect and how they use it.

2. The vulnerabilities of the OS in a SmartTV, and the potential issues to exploit them for malicious purposes.

3. The general behavior of the device when connected to your network, with features like voice control, App control, Smart Home etc. enabled, and how it may expose information about yourself.

All the points and scenarios in the video might be valid, but they jump between those scopes and imply that its all the same, weakening the whole investigation.

If I'm LG and forced to respond to this, I can easily focus on dissecting the voice-input topic as a mere demonstration of the feature and how rooting the TV beforehand just showed the local process of handling it, steering the narrative away from the (IMO) much more important topics...

Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#12

Post by LoganDark »

They rooted the TV to study it. They're not saying you're in sudden danger of attackers rooting your TV and running commands over SSH. They're saying there's evidence that certain data is collected when you wouldn't want it to be, and there are any number of potential vulnerabilities that could provide hackers access, on top of LG potentially having access as well which you also probably wouldn't want.

Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#14

Post by supriyo-biswas »

badsectoracula wrote: post #2

> If he can demonstrate someone remotely jailbreaking your TV, or flipping on those settings without you knowing or doing anything to your TV, that would be a far more damning issue, in my view. Do you actually want a channel with 2.66 million subscribers to show how to get remote access to TVs used by millions of people? :-P

They do show using https://github.com/raws0kil/jsbro-autoroot to get root access. For anyone interested, that pointer is enough, I guess.

Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#15

Post by rickdeckard »

Retr0id wrote: post #7
froddd wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of what I’m reading on rootmy.tv says the vulnerability it exploits has been fixed. So, if one were to keep software up to date on their TV, there is an improbably small chance it can actually be remotely jailbroken — am I reading this right?

The specific vulnerabilities exploited by rootmy.tv have been patched, yes, but there are plenty more unpatched vulnerabilities remaining. There are also more up-to-date rooting tools beyond rootmy.tv. The security posture of webOS is absolutely terrible, at least, it is in the way LG deploys it.

> The specific vulnerabilities exploited by rootmy.tv have been patched, yes, but there are plenty more unpatched vulnerabilities remaining.

But vulnerabilities that can be remotely exploited without user interaction (CVSS grade 9-10)?

Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#17

Post by Retr0id »

rickdeckard wrote: post #15
Retr0id wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The specific vulnerabilities exploited by rootmy.tv have been patched, yes, but there are plenty more unpatched vulnerabilities remaining. There are also more up-to-date rooting tools beyond rootmy.tv. The security posture of webOS is absolutely terrible, at least, it is in the way LG deploys it.

> The specific vulnerabilities exploited by rootmy.tv have been patched, yes, but there are plenty more unpatched vulnerabilities remaining. But vulnerabilities that can be remotely exploited without user interaction (CVSS grade 9-10)?

Yup. I'm sitting on one that doesn't even require an internet connection, only RF down the TV antenna input. I'm waiting for my model to go EOL before I release it.

Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#18

Post by lovich »

> Now, what he’s showing can be pretty scary. I wouldn’t want any attacker to be able to record me without knowing. But it’s important to remember the context here: earlier in the video, Wendell rooted the TV. He has full access to everything on it. To run those commands and programs, he had to log into WebOS via SSH and run them on the device. He didn't show remoting calling those commands, nor was this done on an unmodified device.

> If you root or jailbreak your devices, you've, by their very nature, broken their security. If he can demonstrate someone remotely jailbreaking your TV, or flipping on those settings without you knowing or doing anything to your TV, that would be a far more damning issue, in my view.

What is this authors point?

LG doesn’t need a root exploit to get this info because they made the fucking thing.

I read the article and then grepped for “Texas” to see if I missed it. The author never mentions the fact that this data collection was only found out initially because of a Texas government lawsuit that LG settled on by agreeing to give “informed consent” to users about data collection and then the warnings started popping up in unexpected places.

Is the author arguing that jailbreaking your device to find out what the manufacturer can do to gather data on you is dangerous because I don’t know, questioning your corporate overlords is bad or something?

Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#19

Post by taylorfinley »

This reads like a PR crisis management firm planted article. it probably isn't, but it reads like one. It muddies the waters with vague implications and suggests we cannot infer anything from encrypted packets. If your screen is showing content sourced over HDMI and the packets are heading to the ACR endpoint, I think it's safe to infer HDMI is being ACR'd.

Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#20

Post by adithyassekhar »

I think the author took the wrong message from the video.

His arguments are all

- yes everyone does this not just lg; :)

- yes it can be used to track the user; but unless you literally go into lg ads hq, you can’t say they don’t

- they rooted to trigger this; well the os and system apps don’t need root, we need it to observe.

If the author is here please consider these as the reasons to why an LG customer would be mad.

- They did not knew LG has an ads subsidiary, whose CEOs and executives constantly go on investor meetings claiming “they own the glass”, “they own the living room”, “they own the network and devices” in the “lg household”

- if the above was said by lg tv division it would have still stung less. This was said by an ad company they didn’t knew existed nor did they agree to be associated with when they bought a home appliance.

Stop focusing on the technical details, look at the larger picture.

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