LG TVs Vulnerable To Remote Attacks Because of These Major Security Risks: Should You Be Worried?

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posted on 7 months ago — updated on 1 second ago

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LG TVs run on its proprietary webOS platform that supports a host of apps and offers connectivity via LAN and wireless. The security risk affects thousands.

If you have bought or use an LG smart TV powered by the WebOS operating system, your TV could be a security risk from hackers. The new report comes via Bitdefender this week, which warns these people about possible remote attacks made possible by the security vulnerabilities in the WebOS platform. “We have found several issues affecting WebOS versions 4 through 7 running on LG TVs. These vulnerabilities let us gain root access on the TV after bypassing the authorization mechanism,” the security note here mentions.

The findings from the security firm suggests more than 90,000 LG TVs running on WebOS are affected by the security issue but the number could easily go beyond a lakh if you consider how many brands are now offering WebOS on their non-LG smart TVs in different countries.

The most alarming part about the security note is that Bitdefender claims to have notified LG about the issue back in November, 2023 but the patches were only issued in March this year. Having a gap of over 4 months to fix the security issues could have easily led to bad actors already acting on them and people wouldn’t have even known about it. Bitdefender was only able to make this security report public on April 9, 2024.

LG WebOS Security Issue: Who Are Affected?

The security firm has shared the webOS versions affected by the security issue and also mentioned the TV models from LG that are running on the affected webOS versions:

webOS 4.9.7 – 5.30.40 on LG43UM7000PLA

webOS 04.50.51 – 5.5.0 on OLED55CXPUA

webOS 0.36.50 – 6.3.3-442 on OLED48C1PUB

webOS 03.33.85 – 7.3.1-43 on OLED55A23LA.

Smart TVs have made people dependent on the internet to use apps and other services. These TVs are just like your phones, needing security updates from the manufacturers to keep them secure from hackers. LG is one of the reputed brands in the market, and going by this report, a gap of 4 months to fix the issue suggests LG had a tough time mitigating the issue, which explains such a long delay in releasing an update to close the security loopholes.

If you have an LG TV with any of these versions, and have not updated the webOS software in a long time, we suggest you get it done right away.