Samsung says it will ban smart TV apps that expose users' internet connections to outside parties, after researchers found that some apps were quietly turning televisions into relay points for other people's web traffic.

Norwegian cybersecurity firm Mnemonic discovered the problem. Certain apps from Samsung's smart TV app store included hidden code that could route someone else's internet activity through a user's home connection. To anyone looking at that traffic, it would seem to come from the user's own home rather than from whoever actually sent it Engadget.

Think of it this way: a stranger hands your home address to a delivery service and has packages sent there in your name. You never agreed to receive them, you pay for the shipping, and if the packages contain something illegal, it is your door the authorities knock on.

One of the apps Mnemonic flagged was a licensed Pac-Man game that Samsung had featured in the Editor's Choice section of its app store. Installing it could turn a Samsung smart TV into a relay point, allowing unknown third parties to send web requests through the device Mnemonic.

Here is how it works. A piece of hidden code inside an app can stay inactive after you install it, then wake up later and start routing someone else's internet traffic through your TV. From the outside, that traffic looks like it comes from your household. The TV owner pays for the extra bandwidth and, more seriously, takes on the legal risk of whatever that traffic turns out to be.

After TechCrunch contacted Samsung about the findings, the company said it would ban any apps that shared users' internet connections TechCrunch. Samsung also said it would create platform-wide developer rules explicitly banning this kind of hidden code Engadget.

The problem is not limited to Samsung. LG separately said it would suspend any apps capable of turning a customer's TV into a relay for other people's traffic Krebs on Security. The fact that two of the biggest smart TV makers responded in parallel suggests the issue is built into how these app stores work, not just a slip-up by one company.

Smart TV app stores have generally received less scrutiny than phone app stores, even though the devices sit on home networks and can reach other devices in the house. Hidden relay code inside a casual game, one that Samsung itself promoted, shows how easily trust in a curated app store can be undermined when the financial incentive for proxy operators lines up with the reach of a popular device.

The Pac-Man app's placement in the Editor's Choice section is a concrete data point. Samsung's own curation did not catch the hidden relay code before promoting the app to users. The gap between an editorial endorsement and actual security checking is the kind of thing platform operators tend to fix after the fact rather than before, and Samsung's policy announcement follows that pattern.

Samsung has framed its response as a platform-wide policy change rather than a one-off removal. Banning this kind of hidden code at the developer-policy level is a meaningful step if the company follows through on enforcement, because it lets Samsung reject or remove apps without first having to prove that relay traffic already occurred. Since the hidden code can stay inactive for a long time, catching it after the fact is hard. A policy-level ban addresses the problem when an app is submitted, not after damage is done.

LG's parallel commitment suggests the industry may be settling on a shared standard: consumer devices should not silently act as internet infrastructure for unknown parties. Whether that standard holds will depend on how strictly the companies enforce it, not on what their policy documents say.

The broader lesson is that relay networks are a real commercial product with legitimate uses, but putting them on consumer devices without the owner's informed consent crosses a line that Samsung and LG are now at least beginning to draw. The pattern — hidden code ships inactive, wakes up later, and profits from the host device's internet connection — is not new in the mobile phone world. It is newer for smart TVs, where fewer people think of the device as a computer that can be repurposed without their knowledge.

For anyone managing a home network, the takeaway is simple. A smart TV is a computer running third-party software, and it should be treated like one. Keeping smart TVs and other internet-connected devices on a separate network from your laptops and phones has been recommended practice for years. Discoveries like Mnemonic's are the reason that advice still stands.