While Amazon would probably just want you to buy their newer Fire TV devices, there are of course a lot of people who would want to stick to the older models since they’re still working anyway. So it’s good to know that Amazon is still bringing updates to older Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, and Fire TV Edition television models, particularly since this latest update brings added security for Android Debug Bridge (ADB) connections which can protect your devices from malware attacks.
If you don’t know what an ADB connection is, it’s a tool that is widely used by developers to make changes to an Android device. Mostly, it’s used by developers to side load an app that you can’t find yet on the Google Play Store. It’s turned off by default on any of the Fire TV devices but can easily be turned on in the developer options menu.
If you have a newer Fire TV device or anything that runs Fire OS 6, you know that you’ll get a prompt to accept ADB connections first before it’s connected. But the older ones running Fire OS 5 would automatically allow the connection if the user turned on the ADB Debugging option. This would normally be okay except that some nefarious entities use this to spread malware, as was the case of the worm that infected some of the Fire TV devices earlier this year. The malware will also infect a device that would connect to the same network as the Fire TV.
The new version 5.2.6.6 of the Fire OS will now let prompt all older Fire TV models to allow ADB connections. So if you receive a prompt that you did not initiate, you should deny the request since it probably carries a malicious entity. You can then check if you have an infected device connected to your network.
If you have a newer device like the Amazon Fire TV Cube or the Fire TV 3, you will automatically get a prompt to allow or not to allow ADB Connections. When you allow it from a device, all future connections will also be allowed until such time that you turn it off.
VIA: AFTV News
