Vizio, one of the world's biggest makers of Smart TVs, is paying $2.2 million to settle charges that it collected viewing habits from 11 million devices without the knowledge or consent of the people watching them.

According to a complaint filed Monday by the US Federal Trade Commission, Internet-connected TVs from Vizio contained ACR—short for automated content recognition—software. Without asking for permission, the ACR code captured second-by-second information about the video the TVs displayed. The software collected other personal information and transmitted it, along with the viewing data, to servers controlled by the manufacturer. 

Recently I had a chance to do some experiments on a new generation smart TV to see how well it was secured against attacks. I was looking at an ultimately unusable brand new TV infected with ransomware. Thankfully, there’s plenty to be learned from my tinkering.

This blog will examine some of the security issues associated with smart TVs, including ways in which they can be attacked, why anyone would want to attack them, and what you can do to stop your TV from being attacked. The latest incarnation of the smart TV allows viewers to, among other things, browse the internet, watch on-demand streaming media, download and run applications.

Why worry about Big Brother? It's your big Samsung TV that's watching you. Oh, and listening to you. It concerns the voice-recognition feature, vital for everyone who finds pressing a few buttons on their remote far too tiresome.

The company may "capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features." This is almost understandable. It's a little like every single customer service call, supposedly recorded to make your next customer service call far, far more enjoyable. Clearly, this isn't the only option for those intent on a SmartTV. But what might be authorized and by whom?

Hackers are opening new horizons: having learnt how to break into Apple Inc.’s iPhones they may target smart televisions next. In the future, hackers will be able to interfere with smart TVs – the latest generation of TVs that are connected to the Internet – and require users to send a paid text message to get them unlocked.

Criminals may also seek to steal money from online movie accounts or use the TV’s camera to record what users are doing, he said. Hackers are boosting attacks on targets ranging from corporate computer networks to individual smartphones for data that could help steal money from user accounts.

With the continuous advancements made in technology, our online experiences are becoming more streamlined and seemingly user friendly.

We no longer require stationary desktop computers to access the Internet, but instead can reach the web through our laptops, smartphones, tablets and now, televisions. Smart TVs are one of the latest additions to the family of fun gadgets millions of people have their eyes on, but are they secure? In January 2014, there was a deeper dive into the safety of smart TVs by inspecting the televisions of major manufactures. Journalists were able to crack into the devices by messing with their SSL certificates.