Samsung’s official Twitter account has posted that scanning for ‘malware viruses’ is important to keep it running smoothly. “This also is true for your QLED TV if it’s connected to Wifi!” it added. The tweet included a video showing how to perform this process, which involves going to General Settings > System Manager > Smart Security > Scan.
Samsung has now deleted the controversial tweet. That doesn’t make it any less relevant or accurate however.
Samsung suggests carrying out this slightly arduous task every few weeks, which many people are unlikely to do. This may be done because they discovered a threat, we haven’t heard of any news of any potential security regarding Smart TV.
Security experts are warning us long ago that smart TVs are targets for hackers, and in 2016, we saw an example of an LG smart TV infected with a version of the Cyber.Police ransomware, LG gave instructions on how to perform a factory reset, with this the issue can be fixed.
Samsung have announced that it was extending its contract to have McAfee antivirus software pre-installed on all its Smart TV produced in 2019.
Twitter has been awash with responses to Samsung’s suggestion, with several users asking the obvious question: why isn’t the virus scan performed automatically?
I thought the obvious question was: “What value is really added by giving a TV a TCP/IP stack?”
Would it not be simpler and smarter to manufacture a dumb video output device and feed it with a computer or other device via HDMI?