Hacker hijacks thousands of Chromecasts and smart TVs to play PewDiePie advertisement

Hacker hijacks thousands of Chromecasts and smart TVs to play PewDiePie advertisement

Hacker hijacks thousands of Chromecasts and smart TVs to play PewDiePie advertisement 
Hacker is focusing on smart TVs, Chromecasts, and Google Home devices. Sonos support also coming, the hacker said. 
A hacker team claims to have commandeered thousands of web exposed Chromecasts, smart TVs, and Google Home devices to play a video urging users to subscribe to PewDiePie's YouTube channel. 
The primary hacker behind this hacking effort - codenamed stack- - is referred to online as TheHackerGiraffe. The hacker clarified on Twitter that stack takes the preferred standpoint of users who use mistakenly designed routers that have the UPnP (Universal Plug'n'Play) service empowered, service which forwards specific ports from the inner system on the Internet. 
The ports are 8008, 8009, and 8443, which are typically used by smart TVs, Chromecasts, and Google Home for various administrative functions. 
The devices expose these ports on inward networks, where users can send commands from their smartphones or computers to the devices for remote administration purposes. Be that as it may, routers with inaccurately designed UPnP settings are making these ports accessible on the web. 
This permitted FriendlyH4xx0r to set up a script that scans the whole web for devices with these ports exposed. When devices are recognized, the hacker said another script renames the devices to "HACKED_SUB2PEWDS_#" and after that tries to autoplay the video beneath. 
The video is a piece of a guerilla showcasing effort that got in progress last month when PewDiePie fans needed to help their YouTube symbol increase his record's subscribers add up to fighting with Indian channel T-Series for the title of YouTube's most well-known channel. 
TheHackerGiraffe is as of now infamous after last month he/she commandeered tens of thousands of printers and made them print a similar message, urging users to subscribe to PewDiePie's channel. 
TheHackerGiraffe is also running a site page with stats about the continuous Chromecast-disfigurement battle (named stack). The server has been reset a couple of times today, however, at one point, the page showed that FriendlyH4xx0r had figured out how to rename as well as play the professional PewDiePie YouTube video on in excess of 5,000 devices as of now. 
As this same page plainly states, the hack doesn't misuse helplessness in any smart TVs, Chromecasts, or Google Home devices, however just takes the favorable position of inappropriately arranged routers. 
Users can ensure their devices by disabling UPnP services on their switch, or by ensuring UPnP doesn't port-forward ports 8008, 8009, and 8443. 
The accompanying page contains a list of links to UPnP testing services that will tell users if their switch's UPnP service is empowered. Users can discover instructions on the most proficient method to disable the UPnP service in the settings board or manual of their respective switch show. 
TheHackerGiraffe also implied before today on Twitter that he is investigating extending the scripts to include support for focusing on Sonos devices as well. 
Hacking and compelling Chromecast devices to play a desired video or sound is not another thing. Such hacks have been known since no less than 2013