Page 80 - Cyber Warnings

There presently is one limitation due to the TV’s hardware in that the video of the room is not
available.

Statistically Significant

The average person would likely not be a target. The CIA breaking into your house, plugging the
USB stick into the smart TV, and egressing without being noted would not be a statistically
significant event. Then again, it is not probable the CIA would have a person standing in the
supply chain, installing this on TVs or a random sample of these.

Remediation

If the user has an affected TV, the user certainly wants to remediate this in some form. By not
completing this, the user would only continue to allow the monitoring. The user has a few
options to fix this issue. The user may update the firmware over the air (OTA). If possible the TV
may receive v.118, which removes the issue. Unfortunately, this may not be sufficient if the
COA were to have applied the “prevent updates” version, which would avoid the update being
applied.

The only sure way to have the TV reset to the factory set firmware. This appears to be an easy
enough task, however, trying to rest the TV to the factory setting takes a bit of work and is not
an easy task.

Resources

Brenna, C. (2017, March 8). CIA ‘Weeping Angel’ program can hack smart tvs, wikileaks says.
Retrieved from http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/wikileaks-documents-show-alleged-
cia-program-hack-smart-tvs-article-1.2991141

Cluley, G. (2017, March 18). Is the CIA’s weeping angel spying on tv views? Retrieved from
https://www.grahamcluley.com/cias-weeping-angel-spying-tv-viewers/

Watkins, J. (2017, March 7). Weeping angel malware activates microphone while tv appears off.
Retrieved from http://www.governmentpropaganda.net/weeping-angel-malware-activates-
microphone-while-tv-appears-off/

About The Author

Charles Parker, II began coding in the 1980’s. Presently CP is an Cybersecurity Lab Engineer at
a Tier One supplier to the automobile industry. CP is presently completing the PhD (Information
Assurance and Security) with completing the dissertation. CP’s interests include cryptography,
SCADA, and securing communication channels. He has presented at regional InfoSec
conferences.

80 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – July 2017 Edition
Copyright © Cyber Defense Magazine, All rights reserved worldwide