Just when you thought you had enough of protecting your smartphones and laptops from hackers, a new report reveals the kinds of vulnerabilities lurking in the background of top-of-the-line TVs.

According to a new blog post by Bitdefender, many of the best LG TVs running WebOS versions 4 through 7 contained numerous vulnerabilities that, if exploited, could allow an attacker to add themselves as a user and gain root access to your TV There were. From there, they could use command injection to drop dangerous malware, steal traffic in and out of your TV, or even move laterally across your home network.

Notably, Bitdefender was only able to gain unauthorized access to LG TVs connected via Ethernet. Nevertheless, by using Shodan, a search engine for Internet-connected devices, the company's security researchers identified more than 91,000 TVs with the vulnerable services in question online. Most of the vulnerable LG TVs were installed in South Korea, but Bitdefender found thousands more in the U.S. and other countries around the world.

Whether you own an LG TV or one of the smart TVs best suited for streaming, all you need to know about these vulnerabilities and what you can take to make sure your TV is not immediately hijacked by hackers Here are some steps you can take.

Because Bitdefender has its own smart home cybersecurity hub, it regularly purchases and audits common IoT hardware for vulnerabilities. This is exactly what the company has done with several models of LG TVs.

In doing so, the company's security researchers discovered a vulnerability (tracked as CVE-2023-6317) that an attacker could exploit to add an additional user to an LG TV; Bitdefender has since discovered another flaw (CVE-2023-6318 According to Bitdefender, the first vulnerability has been confirmed to affect LG TVs running webOS versions 4.9.7, 5.5.0, 6.3.3-442, and 7.3.1-43. This has been confirmed to affect.

Another vulnerability (tracked as CVE-2023-6319) was also discovered, which can inject commands into webOS by manipulating the library used to display music lyrics. four flaws discovered by Bitdefender security researchers. Of these, this flaw is of most concern because it could be used to drop malware on vulnerable LG TVs. The last flaw (tracked as CVE-2023-6320) allows an attacker to inject authenticated commands by manipulating API endpoints.

Fortunately, Bitdefender discovered all of these flaws before the attackers did last November. The cybersecurity firm then reported it to LG, and the South Korean hardware manufacturer fixed all of these flaws before Bitdefender released its report on the issue.

Like the best cell phones and the best laptops, the most important thing you can do to keep your smart TV safe from hackers is to update it regularly. Hackers and other cybercriminals often target devices that are not running the latest software, so while it may be annoying to frequently install the latest updates and patches, it is very important to keep your device updated. If you are having difficulty updating your own TV, see How to Update the Software on Your LG TV.

From here, there are a few other things you can do to prevent your TV from falling victim to an attack. For starters, you want to make sure that you are using strong passwords for all of your online accounts. If you have trouble coming up with passwords on your own, you can ask for help from the best password managers that feature password generators. Similarly, there are many free password generators online, but they do not securely store or autofill passwords.

All Internet traffic coming into and leaving your home passes through one of the best Wi-Fi routers, so you want to keep your router up to date too. Newer Wi-Fi routers come with their own app, which makes it very easy to download and install the latest updates. However, if you have an older router, you can always update it manually.

Televisions are often the center of the home and contain a lot of personal and financial data, making them just as likely a target for hackers as phones and computers. Therefore, all devices should be kept up-to-date and secured with strong passwords that are not reused across multiple online accounts.