Read This Before You Buy That TV Streaming Stick
Security researchers have discovered that generic TV streaming sticks are being used as part of a massive ad fraud network. These devices secretly spoof mobile phones to click on advertisements, funneling data to a Chinese-based IoT company.
Why it matters
This highlights significant cybersecurity risks associated with cheap, unverified consumer electronics and the sophistication of global ad fraud operations.
Security experts have been sounding the alarm for years about the risks of using generic TV boxes that promise unlimited content streaming for a one-time fee, warning that they secretly rent the user’s Internet connection out to strangers. But a groundbreaking new analysis finds these devices also routinely spoof themselves as mobile phones clicking ads on AI-generated websites as part of sprawling operation that seeks to defraud online merchants and advertising networks.
Pedro Falé is a threat researcher with the security firm Bitsight . Falé told KrebsOnSecurity he was able to peer inside a vast and complex ad fraud network by registering an expired domain name that was used to coordinate fake ad clicks across a particularly popular brand of these streaming devices known as H96 .
An H96 TV streaming device currently advertised for sale on Amazon.
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