EvilScreen attack: Smart TV hijacking via multi-channel remote control mimicry

Modern smart TVs often communicate with their remote controls (including the smartphone simulated ones) using multiple wireless channels (e.g., Infrared, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi). However, this multi-channel remote control communication introduces a new attack surface. An inherent security flaw is that...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: ZHANG, Yiwei, MA, Siqi, CHEN, Tiancheng, LI, Juanru, DENG, Robert H., BERTINO, Elisa
Format: text
Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/9612
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/10612/viewcontent/EvilScreen_av.pdf
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Singapore Management University
Language: English
id sg-smu-ink.sis_research-10612
record_format dspace
spelling sg-smu-ink.sis_research-106122024-11-23T15:52:15Z EvilScreen attack: Smart TV hijacking via multi-channel remote control mimicry ZHANG, Yiwei MA, Siqi CHEN, Tiancheng LI, Juanru DENG, Robert H. BERTINO, Elisa Modern smart TVs often communicate with their remote controls (including the smartphone simulated ones) using multiple wireless channels (e.g., Infrared, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi). However, this multi-channel remote control communication introduces a new attack surface. An inherent security flaw is that remote controls of most smart TVs are designed to work in a benign environment rather than an adversarial one, and thus wireless communications between a smart TV and its remote controls are not strongly protected. Attackers can leverage such a flaw to abuse the remote control communication and compromise smart TV systems. In this paper, we propose EvilScreen, a novel attack that exploits ill-protected remote control communications to access protected resources of a smart TV or even control the screen. EvilScreen exploits a multi-channel remote control mimicry vulnerability present in today smart TVs. Unlike other attacks, which compromise the TV system by exploiting code vulnerabilities or malicious third-party apps, EvilScreen directly reuses commands of different remote controls, combines them together to circumvent deployed authentication and isolation policies, and finally accesses or controls TV resources remotely. We evaluated eight mainstream smart TVs and found that they are all vulnerable to EvilScreen attacks, including a Samsung product adopting the ISO/IEC security specification. 2024-07-01T07:00:00Z text application/pdf https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/9612 info:doi/10.1109/TDSC.2023.3286182 https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/10612/viewcontent/EvilScreen_av.pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems eng Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University Smart TV remote control multi-channel authentication and authorization security analysis Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces Information Security
institution Singapore Management University
building SMU Libraries
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider SMU Libraries
collection InK@SMU
language English
topic Smart TV
remote control
multi-channel
authentication and authorization
security analysis
Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces
Information Security
spellingShingle Smart TV
remote control
multi-channel
authentication and authorization
security analysis
Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces
Information Security
ZHANG, Yiwei
MA, Siqi
CHEN, Tiancheng
LI, Juanru
DENG, Robert H.
BERTINO, Elisa
EvilScreen attack: Smart TV hijacking via multi-channel remote control mimicry
description Modern smart TVs often communicate with their remote controls (including the smartphone simulated ones) using multiple wireless channels (e.g., Infrared, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi). However, this multi-channel remote control communication introduces a new attack surface. An inherent security flaw is that remote controls of most smart TVs are designed to work in a benign environment rather than an adversarial one, and thus wireless communications between a smart TV and its remote controls are not strongly protected. Attackers can leverage such a flaw to abuse the remote control communication and compromise smart TV systems. In this paper, we propose EvilScreen, a novel attack that exploits ill-protected remote control communications to access protected resources of a smart TV or even control the screen. EvilScreen exploits a multi-channel remote control mimicry vulnerability present in today smart TVs. Unlike other attacks, which compromise the TV system by exploiting code vulnerabilities or malicious third-party apps, EvilScreen directly reuses commands of different remote controls, combines them together to circumvent deployed authentication and isolation policies, and finally accesses or controls TV resources remotely. We evaluated eight mainstream smart TVs and found that they are all vulnerable to EvilScreen attacks, including a Samsung product adopting the ISO/IEC security specification.
format text
author ZHANG, Yiwei
MA, Siqi
CHEN, Tiancheng
LI, Juanru
DENG, Robert H.
BERTINO, Elisa
author_facet ZHANG, Yiwei
MA, Siqi
CHEN, Tiancheng
LI, Juanru
DENG, Robert H.
BERTINO, Elisa
author_sort ZHANG, Yiwei
title EvilScreen attack: Smart TV hijacking via multi-channel remote control mimicry
title_short EvilScreen attack: Smart TV hijacking via multi-channel remote control mimicry
title_full EvilScreen attack: Smart TV hijacking via multi-channel remote control mimicry
title_fullStr EvilScreen attack: Smart TV hijacking via multi-channel remote control mimicry
title_full_unstemmed EvilScreen attack: Smart TV hijacking via multi-channel remote control mimicry
title_sort evilscreen attack: smart tv hijacking via multi-channel remote control mimicry
publisher Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University
publishDate 2024
url https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/9612
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/10612/viewcontent/EvilScreen_av.pdf
_version_ 1816859160689508352