Incident Response, TDR

Wi-Fi Alliance contacts Philips after researchers hack smart TVs

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The Wi-Fi Alliance, a trade association that certifies Wi-Fi products, has contacted Philips regarding its Miracast passphrase implementation on recent smart TVs that doesn't meet Alliance standards.

Philips Smart TVs running the latest firmware are using fixed passphrases when connecting to Miracast – a Bluetooth-like feature used to establish a Wi-Fi connection to the televisions without the need of involving a wireless router. As a result, researchers were able to remotely take control of and take data off the smart TVs. 

“In the case of Miracast, the underlying specification requires device-generated passphrases to consist of characters randomly selected from upper case letters, lower case letters, and numbers,” according to a statement the Wi-Fi Alliance emailed to SCMagazine.com.

Philips did not respond to a SCMagazine.com request for comment.

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