LinkedIn·Thursday, 13 August 2026·13d ago

We read something this week that hasn't left our heads. Security researchers rooted a Samsung TV to see what's actually running behind its…

Hosted Power

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We read something this week that hasn't left our heads. Security researchers rooted a Samsung TV to see what's actually running behind its app store. They found a licensed Pac-Man game, a game Samsung Electronics itself recommends under "Editor's Choice", shipping with a residential proxy SDK. It just sits there, doing nothing, until a remote server tells it otherwise. Flip one setting on that server and your TV starts routing other people's internet traffic through your home connection, so it looks like it's coming from you. They found that setting already switched on in other games from the same publisher, which claims over 400 million home installs. There's technically a consent screen, but it's the kind of thing you tap through in two seconds just to get back to the game. And the apps themselves barely count as apps. They're thin shells that load the real code from a server every time you open them, so what got approved for the store isn't necessarily what's still running today. This kind of carelessness from big manufacturers is exactly how these risks keep showing up. These practices didn't exist a couple of years ago. At Hosted Power we built TurboShield to prevent this, but what really worries us is that most people have no idea it's even happening. Worth reading if you've got a smart TV at home. https://lnkd.in/e-CTtCt3 #CyberSecurity #Privacy #SmartTV