Smart TVs are not really the devices of choice for hackers, but the designers of the Pandoraspear malware have made them their target…
The cybersecurity company WatchGuard is warning of the proliferation of a somewhat unusual virus which attacks a platform that is generally under little threat: smart TVs. Her name ? Pandoraspear.
Pandoraspear’s delivery method is quite unique: it arrives on your TV via your smartphone. It is in fact when you want to watch content from a free (and therefore often illegal) streaming site by broadcasting it from your phone to your television that the malware takes control of your device.
Once inside, it can carry out several diverse actions ranging from DDoS attacks (denial of service attack) to the distribution of content by hackers, as was the case during a politically motivated offensive that had took place in the United Arab Emirates, where images of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had been broadcast by hackers.
Pandoraspear is actually quite old, but its widespread adoption is much more recent, and appears to originate from a Latin America-based cybercriminal group called Bigpanzi.
It is in itself quite simple to avoid an attack by Pandoraspear: do not use illegal streaming sites, and avoid “casting” this content on your smart TV. Advice that may seem very obvious, but which is not necessarily so clear for the third of young Europeans who still regularly resort to illegal streaming and IPTV.
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