Smart TV Apps Found Using Home Connections as Proxies Without Clear Consent
The finding reveals a widespread monetization model for smart TV apps that turns home internet connections into proxy nodes, raising privacy and security risks that platform policies have not addressed.
Reporting from 1 sources: GIGAZINE.
A security firm surveyed over 6,000 LG and Samsung smart TV apps and found proxy SDKs in more than a third of them. These SDKs route other people's internet traffic through users' home connections, often without meaningful consent, and some lack protections against local network access.
Spur Intelligence Labs examined 6,038 apps from LG's webOS and Samsung's Tizen app stores and found residential proxy SDKs in 2,058 of them. The SDKs, provided by companies including Bright Data, Massive, Honeygain, and Oxylabs, make traffic appear to come from a home connection. Some apps appeared to be designed solely as containers for running the proxy, with no other function. Consent screens in some cases allowed the proxy to continue running after the app was closed. Samsung Tizen apps offered an ad-free experience if users accepted Bright Data's use of their connection. Amazon and Roku explicitly prohibit third-party proxy services in their app stores, but no equivalent policies were found for LG or Samsung.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.