Your Samsung smart TV might have been working against you—and you'd never know it. According to TechCrunch, security researchers have uncovered a scenario where popular apps on Samsung's platform, including a simple Pac-Man game that Samsung itself promoted in its Editor's Choice section, were secretly tunneling users' home internet connections to complete strangers.
While you were watching shows, your living room connection was being hijacked as a "residential proxy"—essentially turning your TV into an always-on gateway for outsiders to hide their web traffic. The app continues working even after you close it.
The Norwegian cybersecurity firm Mnemonic uncovered the scheme, revealing that some of these apps claim to be installed on hundreds of millions of smart TVs globally. These are barebone shells designed to look legitimate during review, then load potentially dangerous code once installed. "What was reviewed is not necessarily what is running," Mnemonic's Harrison Sand explained. Samsung's app vetting process had a massive gap.
Residential proxy networks are increasingly linked to cybercrime, meaning your innocent Netflix habit could inadvertently become a launchpad for fraud, hacking, or worse. For Indian households especially—where smart TVs have become ubiquitous—this represents a silent security breach affecting millions of families who downloaded these apps thinking they were harmless games or utilities.
Samsung's response came after TechCrunch's inquiry. The electronics giant said it is immediately banning apps with proxy functionality and implementing "strict platform-wide developer policies." The company promised to identify and remove all affected apps currently in its store. The move reveals a larger problem: Samsung's app marketplace had virtually no safeguards against this type of malicious code, relying instead on review processes that could be easily fooled.
LG faced the same reckoning last month when reporting revealed that roughly 42% of apps on its smart TV store were secretly enlisting devices into proxy networks. Now both tech giants are scrambling to clean house.
For consumers, the message is clear: not every app in your device's store is trustworthy, no matter how official it looks. Download carefully, and consider checking your app permissions—your internet connection is not available for rent.
