Conversation
Jonathan Corbet
corbet
Ah what a world we have built...
"In addition to enlisting the user’s TV box in ad fraud networks, these off-brand streaming devices almost universally come with residential proxy software pre-installed. This software rents the user’s Internet address out to anonymous paying customers, who run the gamut from aggressive content scraping firms to ticket scalpers and outright cybercriminals.
What’s more, because these generic (and generally dirt cheap) TV boxes are all horribly insecure by default and bereft of any kind of authentication, installing one on your home or office network only invites further mischief. In January, the proxy tracking service Synthient documented how multiple botnets had rapidly enslaved millions of TV boxes using a complex interplay of security vulnerabilities in both the residential proxy software and the streaming devices themselves."
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/07/read-this-before-you-buy-that-tv-streaming-stick/
"In addition to enlisting the user’s TV box in ad fraud networks, these off-brand streaming devices almost universally come with residential proxy software pre-installed. This software rents the user’s Internet address out to anonymous paying customers, who run the gamut from aggressive content scraping firms to ticket scalpers and outright cybercriminals.
What’s more, because these generic (and generally dirt cheap) TV boxes are all horribly insecure by default and bereft of any kind of authentication, installing one on your home or office network only invites further mischief. In January, the proxy tracking service Synthient documented how multiple botnets had rapidly enslaved millions of TV boxes using a complex interplay of security vulnerabilities in both the residential proxy software and the streaming devices themselves."
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/07/read-this-before-you-buy-that-tv-streaming-stick/
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Bart Smit △ ⲁⲗⲍⲓⲙⲟⲛ 🇪🇺🇺🇦
alzimon@mastodon.nl@corbet I've been saying it for 30+ years, and not everyone gets it: using a firewall for controlling and restricting incoming connections is all fine and dandy, but doing the same for *outgoing* connections is more important.
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