Cheap Android TV Streaming Box May Have a Dangerous Backdoor | Hacker News Reader

Cheap Android TV Streaming Box May Have a Dangerous Backdoor

wired.com

24 pointsBrajeshwar9 comments

Found it very amusing that the article begins: "WHEN YOU BUY a TV streaming box, there are certain things you wouldn’t expect it to do. It shouldn’t secretly be laced with malware or start communicating with servers in China when it’s powered up. It definitely should not be acting as a node in an organized crime scheme making millions of dollars through fraud."

These things have been the default expectation for Android devices of unknown provenance for quite some time, at least among the technically savvy.

I'm not sure why you are calling out Android.

I wouldn't trust a laptops Windows install that's been shipped from some random AliExpress account either.

Or, really, any pre-installed OS from similar sources. Linux/*BSD/MacOS are just more of a rarity as a pre-installed choice, mostly owing to the popularity of Android/Windows.

I suspect iOS, due to Apple's policy of "no external app sources" and other similar decisions, much as HN's audience derides them, as a consequence is most resistant to this sort of a thing.

You can wipe a generic PC and reinstall the OS, which will deal with all but the most nefarious malware.

No such luck with these random Android devices, generally. You are generally obligated to use the system image provided by the untrustworthy vendor.

Unfortunately Microsoft provide the Windows Platform Binary Table which is a documented vendor feature, rather than nefarious malware.

You can get a rootkit on every boot as part of your UEFI, and that's a bonus.

I mean, I don't trust their installs even shipped direct from the major laptop manufacturers either..

Or the Windows default install without all the modifications to the registry and group policy editor and privacy settings to turn off all the bloat and telemetry.

I mean, seriously, does Microsoft _really_ need to know every time I open an application?

Man, Linus Tech Tips talked about this ~6 months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vpepaQ-VQQ

and refers to the same investigation: https://github.com/DesktopECHO/T95-H616-Malware

I was interested in finding one of those infected TV boxes for research purposes, I have yet to be able to find one that contains actual infected apps or malware.

In fact when the article that brought this to light (a security consultant interviewed by Bleepingcomputer), there was zero technical details, only the linked github account showing steps to delete/remove some random apps.

I would love to find any actual technical analysis/writeup of anything malicious here.

utterly unsurprising, like at all

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