Did you know that your Smart TV can get malware just as easily as your computer or smartphone?
Let’s put this into perspective.
You finally bought the TV of your dreams: a 65-inch curved Smart TV with 4K capabilities. Mother of God, misplaced Starbucks cups and water bottles on “Game of Thrones” never looked so good.
Unfortunately, after a few weeks of using your dream TV, you soon realize that it has been infected with malware.
What can malware do to a TV?
For starters, if your Smart TV has malware, your TV will start running slower and slower. If your Smart TV is infected with malware, you are also at risk of having your data stolen, and being subjected to bogus ads, according to an article from WeLiveSecurity.
To think, all you ever wanted was to watch “Stranger Things” in beautiful HD.
How to scan your TV for viruses
Recently, Samsung tweeted about the need to scan your TV for viruses every few weeks.
The tweet has been recently deleted, but we can tell you how to scan your Samsung TV for viruses:
- Turn on your TV
- Open your Settings
- Go to General, and then to System Manager
- Scroll down and choose Smart Security
- From Smart Security, click Scan
You can check out the video below for reference:
Some Smart TVs have different scanning procedures, but pretty much all of them can be scanned by accessing Security from your Settings.
Wrapping up
The fact that Samsung tweeted about the need to scan TVs for viruses, and then deleted the tweet after receiving flack is cause for concern. Whether or not Samsung has detected a vulnerability in their TVs has yet to be discovered, but we’ll keep our ears open.
Until then, make sure that you are running regular virus scans on your TV. If you spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a TV, you should also spend time to make sure it is working properly.
