Post #4700347 · Elektrine

2026-09-07 13:37 UTC

Your LG TV Might Be Spying on Your Entire Network While You Think It's Turned Off cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/51634640 A new Gamers Nexus investigation found a retail LG TV actively scanning the local network for phones, laptops, smartwatches and other connected devices, while also capturing microphone audio when the screen appeared to be in standby. The investigation found voice data being stored locally even after the TV was disconnected from the network, with the queued data uploaded once connectivity returned. Researchers also uncovered webOS vulnerabilities that could potentially turn the television into a remotely controlled surveillance device. The really unsettling part isn’t just the advertising angle. It’s the fact that a consumer television can sit inside your trusted network, enumerate other devices, access a microphone, store collected data locally and communicate with external infrastructure. Put that same device in a corporate office, hospital, hotel or conference room and the security implications become considerably more serious. I went through the investigation in detail, including the network scanning, microphone behavior, ACR, webOS attack surface, offline data collection and practical mitigations

Replies (10)

@johntwinkletits@fedinsfw.app 2026-09-08 02:00

Every device with a CPU, WiFi module, and microphones are vulnerable to this. If you don’t want to be vulnerable, build your own hardware, software, and network. There’s no other option.

Open ##4700346
@cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 2026-09-07 20:16

If you are going to have smart devices, put them on their own VLAN. They should not have access to the rest of your network. TVs shouldn't be connected at all. Use a PC or android box if you want to stream stuff.

Open ##4700629
@woelkchen@lemmy.world 2026-09-07 13:56

Don’t connect TVs to your network.

Open ##4701564
@some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 2026-09-08 04:56

There’s no “might” here. It’s why high-end TVs are cheap.

Open ##4701883
@WeLoveCastingSpellz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-09-08 05:28

Others do too

Open ##4703745
@Jhex@lemmy.world 2026-09-07 14:44

Bosch fucking dishwashers do this, once connected there is no way to disconnect them so I sink all its outgoing traffick at the router level Complete garbage

Open ##4706412
@Tikiporch@lemmy.world 2026-09-08 02:28

Is this anything a VLAN and Pihole can’t fix? Edit: looks kind of impossible to prevent, if it can access an open Wi-Fi nearby.

Open ##4708529
@paulcdb@lemmy.radio 2026-09-08 07:39

I don’t care that companies thought they’d get away with this, the problem is have are the people buying this shit! This should’ve been enough to get people to just refuse to buy it but no. And the bigger problem isn’t what we know they can do, you have to think about what it ‘could’ do. Even if you never connect this stuff to the internet, they could still track all this stuff locally. Once that happens, which no doubt it will if not already, what happens if suddenly you get arrested for something, they confiscate the TV, download all the stuff tracked, and oops, something even more incriminating… maybe you watched an illiegal movie on jellyfin! 😲 Look at all the “People will never let it happen” that has happened pretty much unchallenged… you’ll have no privacy, and you’ll all be paying for it!

Open ##4711608
@0x0@lemmy.zip 2026-09-08 07:57

It’s hard to find a dumb TV. Monitors and projectors are going the same way. Not connecting them might not be enough. Time to learn how to use a soldering iron.

Open ##4712329
@bloviate@lemmus.org 2026-09-08 14:37

Is there a way to direct all the iffy traffic from the tv to a pi hole?

Open ##4725789