Those bootleg streaming devices have malware preinstalled
Privacy
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All right, lastly if you have a hacked Fire Tv Stick running streaming video, you may want to consider disconnecting it.
Alfred, you're on this story.
What's going on with this?
Yeah, so security researchers from the Digital Citizens Alliance and Dark Wolf Consulting had
Love that name!
Yeah, it's very interesting.
They had taken a look at the six most popular kinds of apps for these Bootleg streaming sticks.
Yeah.
So if you're not familiar with them, they're basically like modded Fire TV sticks or like modded Rokus that are getting these channels.
You can watch HBO and Netflix for free on things like this [CROSSTALK].
[INAUDIBLE] A catalog of streaming movies and TV shows, right?
Yeah, so they're filled with malware.
Right.
The majority of them are, at least.
In one case when he plugged it in and connected it to his Wi-Fi network.
It started like siphoning off all this data like including his Wi Fi password and sending it to a server out in Indonesia.
Right.
And a lot of people don't think that I'm not installing anything on this.
Like I'm not installing any viruses on it, but I think big yeah that is a big concern is like most people think they're fine 'cause it's just connected to your TV and it's not a computer or anything like that with your bank account on it.
But that's not the case.
But yeah because it's conected to the same WiFi netowrk.
So if your computer is also on that same WiFi netowrk it can be erratically like syphon that kind of sentitive information off of it.
I mean, beyond just disconnecting, is there any advice for folks?
I would recommend just not buying one in general.
Streaming options are so cheap already.
Right.
Do you really need to watch Game of Thrones that bad?
I mean, I do, but I actually legit pay for it.
Yeah, other people pay for it too.
It's their data.
It just Two ways to pay for these kinds of things.
Right, right.
Some of it's just to share out your privacy.
Yeah, yeah, problem.
All right, for more on these stories check us out on CNET.
I'm Roger Chang.
I'm Alfred Ing.
Thanks for watching.
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