A researcher reverse-engineered Bright Data’s iOS SDK and found it can turn consumer devices, including always-on smart TVs, into exit nodes for web-scraping traffic. The findings highlight a consent gap in Bright Data’s proxy model, where home IPs and bandwidth are used for AI-driven scraping through devices that may bypass VPNs and run in the background. #BrightData #Luminati #IncludeSecurity #Buchodi #Petflix #Roku #SamsungTizen #LGwebOS
Keypoints
- Bright Data’s SDK can relay scraping jobs through consumer devices using home internet connections.
- The researcher found the peer channel lacked strong authentication controls.
- On iOS, the traffic can bypass a configured VPN and stay hidden from common monitoring tools.
- The opt-in wording does not match the SDK’s actual traffic and runtime limits.
- Blocking Bright Data’s SDK domains at the router can stop the relay behavior.
Read More: https://thehackernews.com/2026/06/free-apps-are-quietly-turning-smart-tvs.html