Cybersecurity specialists from BitSight have identified a large-scale cyberattack on smart devices and smartphones, which affected more than 190,000 different devices worldwide. The largest number of infected devices was found in Russia, China, India, Belarus, Brazil and Ukraine. These include Chinese Hisense smartphones and Yandex smart TVs; Yandex TV models from YNDX-00091 to YNDX-000102 are under threat.
In order to gain access to devices, cybercriminals penetrate their systems either at the production stage or a little later through vulnerabilities in the firmware. After that, infected devices automatically connect to the hackers' control servers. Smart TVs, tablets and smartphones, without the knowledge of their owners, in this case transmit user data to attackers, and also participate in DDoS attacks, the spread of disinformation and advertising fraud.
The Yandex press service has already responded to this information. The company notes that the problem is being solved, and there is no longer a threat to smart devices.
Yandex Security Service has already localized the problem and is working on its solution. Malicious code got into the software of some TVs due to the compromise of an external source. Due to this, TVs could connect to remote servers. There is no threat to devices now - access to all such servers has already been blocked. All TVs are already receiving a new version of the software, which will provide additional device security.
Earlier it became known that Yandex intends to install its YaOS operating system on all imported TVs in Russia. These can be both Chinese TVs and equipment from other manufacturers.
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