Samsung is doing its level best to scare people out of owning a smart TV with the suggestion that it's necessary to scan for viruses on your internet-connected TV every few weeks.
In a tweet by the official Samsung Support USA account, the company said any of its QLED TVs that are connected to wi-fi should be scanned regularly in the same way you should scan your computer. "Every few weeks" was the suggestion, with Samsung sharing a video showing how to do this on your TV.
The tweet has now been deleted, following a shocked and surprised reaction by many users, who were likely unaware of any such risk - or why the need to run a virus-scanner should be left with the user, rather than being taken care of automatically by the TV itself. The fact that the tweet was deleted suggests the advice is perhaps not so pressing after all.
And in reality, the evidence of any malicious software aimed at televisions is limited, and the likelihood of your TV being affected is widely-accepted to be incredibly small.
In a statement, Samsung said: "Yesterday we shared information about one of the preventative security features on our Smart TVs, in order to show consumers proactive steps they can take on their device. We understand that this may have caused some confusion and we want to clarify that this was simply a way to inform and educate consumers about one of the features included in our products."
If you do want to run a virus-scanner on your Samsung TV, head into the menu, then navigate to General > System Manager > Smart Security, and then select Scan.
All that being said, we'd suggest there's no need to panic if your have a smart TV connected to the internet – the risk of malicious software attacks on TVs remains very low.
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