Samsung’s spying TV sets attracted headlines that worried many people but until yesterday no-one had looked at exactly what data was being sent by the devices to Samsung.
Pen Test Partners looked at the data flowing too and from Samsung smart TVs and found that yes, the devices are listening and transmitted data back to their – and other company’s – servers.
That is pretty well what is expected, the real concern though is the quality of what’s being transmitted with Pen Test describing it as a mishmash of code with not even a gesture towards security, “what we see here is not SSL encrypted data. It’s not even HTTP data, it’s a mix of XML and some custom binary data packet.”
One of the concerns about the Internet of Things has been the quality and security of the data being transmitted, the Samsung TV shows both are lacking.
For the IoT to deliver the benefits it promises, connections need to be secure and data reliable. Right now it appears the vendors of consumer products aren’t delivering the basics necessary to make the technologies dependable.