Lunarsoft

Samsung SmartTV owners should scan for malware weekly

Published

Samsung’s official Twitter account posted that scanning for ‘malware viruses’ on is important to keep it running smoothly. “This also is true for your QLED TV if it’s connected to Wi-Fi!” it added. The tweet included a video showing how to perform this process on your Samsung SmartTV, which involves going to General Settings > System Manager > Smart Security > Scan.

Update (12pm ET): Samsung has now deleted the somewhat controversial tweet. That doesn’t make it any less relevant or accurate however.

Samsung suggests carrying out this slightly arduous task every few weeks, which many people are unlikely to do. We don’t know whether the tweet was prompted by a recently discovered threat, though there’s been no news of any new potential security vulnerabilies.

Experts have long warned that smart TVs are a ripe target for hackers, and in 2016, we saw an example of an LG smart TV infected with a version of the Cyber.Police ransomware, though LG’s instructions on how to perform a factory reset fixed the issue.

While Samsung TVs have had the ability to scan for malware for a few years now, this is the first time the company has recommended performing a manual scan every few weeks.

Back at the start of the year, Samsung announced it was extending its contract to have McAfee antivirus software pre-installed on all its smart televisions produced in 2019.

Twitter has been awash with responses to Samsung’s suggestion, with several users asking the obvious question: why isn’t the virus scan performed automatically?

Source: Techspot

Tags: