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Oh no, my toaster has a virus!

A number of companies and commentators have painted a vision of the future where all manner of devices are connected to the internet.

Once IPV6 becomes ubiquitous, there will indeed be sufficient addresses to support widespread connectivity, to the extent that every smart appliance in your house can become a part of cyberspace.

I think it was LG who even advertised a world where you could use your smartphone to adjust the thermostat in your house, turn on the oven remotely while on your way home from work and effectively control your whole house from any place on the planet.

The truth is that this science-fiction is gradually becoming everyday reality - but their could be a problem.

For example, right now "Net-capable" TV sets are becoming commonplace -- allowing couch potatoes to surf the web, watch YouTube videos and access a range of video-on-demand services.

Unfortunately, in order to deliver such functionality, these sets obviously need some kind of browser software -- and therein lies a big vulnerability.

To the best of my recollection, there has never been a single HTML4 or better web-browser released that didn't ship with a range of security vulnerabilities.

Just look how often Microsoft, Firefox and Google regularly roll out security updates for their browser offerings and you can see the magnitude of the problem.

Right now, the biggest mass of potentially compromised browsers exists on computers but pretty soon, that "big target" will become the masses of smart TV sets that have a full-time internet connection and are running 6 or more hours per day.

This massive computing resource will become a very attractive prize for hackers and I would expect to see a huge surge in malware that directly targets such devices.

Imagine the prestige and money that might be associated with producing a bit of malware which allows a hacker to pop up a big advertising banner onto hundreds of millions of TV screens all over the world -- whenever they choose to.

With advertisers willing to pay "big money" for TV advertising, access to this kind of malware-driven power could become a hugely profitable enterprise for those whose clients will probably include fake viagra merchants, "personal products", payday loans, etc.

So, how long before we see the first version of Norton's TV-AV?

Given the fact that most TV sets will likely be kept for far longer than the average PC or OS, will the manufacturers of these sets continue to provide security updates for older gear -- or will they simply tell you to "buy a new set" once your 42" LED LCD TV becomes infected with malware that renders it useless?

If the manufacturers aren't already working very hard on delivering a fool-proof and bullet-proof appliance in the form of the new Net-connected TV sets they make then I suspect we're going to see a major explosion in malware and a lot of unhappy customers.

Perhaps the only real way to go is to leave the sets "dumb" and simply rely on a disposable or completely reflashable set-top-box to do the web-stuff?

Will the "connected" households we've been promised be the utopia predicted by eager manufacturers -- or will it be a nightmare of virus, trojan and other malware infestations?

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