Xiaomi 17 Review: I Took It to Thailand for a Real Camera Test
Xiaomi phones are a little tough to judge. After all, these guys do everything, from making phones to laptops and sometimes even record-breaking electric SUVs. The Xiaomi 17 is a bit like the quiet kid that never gets noticed, simply because its bigger brother, the 17 Ultra, is on a streak of collecting all the best smartphone camera awards. But here’s the thing: most people won’t ever splurge that much money on a non-Samsung or Apple Ultra flagship. The main sales driver will always be the base model, and that’s the question I had in mind. Can the Xiaomi 17 go head-to-head with the OPPO Find X9 and the vivo X300, especially since it’s more expensive than both? You can thank AI for that.
To answer this very question, I got the Xiaomi 17 for review and took it with me on a work trip to Phuket, Thailand. Here, I used the phone to capture about 500 photos in the summer heat, with temperatures soaring to 40 degrees, and constant GPS navigation to put the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC through its paces. Spoiler alert, I really do love this phone, but there are a few quirks, too. Here’s why.
Xiaomi 17 Review
Hisan Kidwai
Summary
The Xiaomi 17 brings a lot of things to the table. You get the best-in-class performance that’s miles ahead of the competition. A design that’s understated yet premium. Battery life that can easily last two full days, and cameras that, instead of being same same but different, induce a character to each and every photo that makes them more memorable. Of course, it’s not perfect. I’d like the camera bugs fixed and ultrawide performance improved, but overall, the Xiaomi 17 gets my recommendation.
Design & Hardware
If Apple were ever going to make an Android phone, then they’d probably design something like the Xiaomi 17. I wouldn’t describe the build as flashy, but it’s super elegant and reminiscent of past Xiaomi flagships. I talked about this in my X300 Pro review, as creating a brand identity to compete against Samsung and Apple is super important, and Xiaomi has listened. While I was using it daily, many of my friends and family asked me what Xiaomi phone I was using—note the wording: “Xiaomi phone,” meaning they knew it was a particular brand, and that’s important. The Chinese smartphone maker said they thought of every curve, and I’ll just say it straight: the 17 is the best-feeling compact phone I’ve held this year.
The corners are crafted to perfection, the width is spot on, and even the way the aluminum frame blends into the glass without an abrupt edge makes carrying the phone a very enjoyable experience. Beyond that, the back glass is frosted to prevent the phone from slipping off glass surfaces, and the side frame doesn’t let go of its color inside a case.
Speaking of color, you get plenty of options, but my favorite is definitely the blue variant, as it has that breezy summer vibe. The buttons are tactile and positioned where your hand would naturally rest.
Moving to the camera module, Xiaomi has taken the iPhone route of individual stove-top camera cutouts. There are four of them (one houses the flash), and aside from the fact that dust is difficult to get out from between, I do quite like them. The ultrasonic fingerprint scanner is positioned at a comfy place where your thumb would naturally rest. I used it on the beach with wet hands, and it worked perfectly fine. Besides, the phone is IP69-rated for dust and water resistance, meaning it should technically withstand a swim. Did I dare take it inside the water on the beach? Absolutely not, because the IP rating is only for fresh water, and seawater can cause irreversible damage.
Display
I’ve said this before that all flagship displays are essentially the same, and that holds true for the Xiaomi 17, too. The phone features a 6.3-inch 1220 x 2656 OLED display, with an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate. This time, Xiaomi has trimmed the bezels even more for a more premium look, and I’m a fan. The panel is exceptionally color-accurate and vibrant for content consumption, as evidenced by my 3-hour run of The Pitt season 2 on the flight to Thailand. Even the HDR performance is exceptional.
Xiaomi claims a peak brightness number of 3,500 nits. Sadly, I don’t have a light meter to put the claim to the test, but from my experience using the panel in the 12 noon sun at Phi Phi Island, it’s plenty bright for outdoor use. The texts were legible, and I could use the phone for GPS navigation without squinting.
When it comes to durability, I usually don’t like to test that part myself and instead rely on user reports. However, I accidentally dropped the Xiaomi 17 on a concrete floor. The result was surprisingly good. I dropped it, without a case, from a tripod at chest height, meaning that, while the phone was in the air, all sorts of scary thoughts came to mind, including how much this repair was going to cost me. Thankfully, the phone escaped with only minor damage to the frame.
Performance & Software
Performance is what makes or breaks the smartphone experience, and it’s no surprise to anyone that the Xiaomi 17 delivers top-of-the-line performance. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is the best Android processor in the market, and it’s coupled with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 4.1 internal storage. The results? The Xiaomi 17 is an absolute joy to use. It flies through the UI like nothing, and there’s ample headroom for literally any task. That being said, the phone runs on HyperOS 3, which, for the uninitiated, is a very altered version of Android that resembles more like iOS.
I don’t have a problem with the look, especially since HyperOS is one of the smoothest Android skins, with silky animations and a lot of customization. My issue is that, unlike other Chinese skins that allow you to tone down the iOS-ness, Xiaomi doesn’t.
For example, the notification shade is divided into two sections: the quick control and the panel. I don’t like that, but when I went digging in the settings to find a way to merge them, there wasn’t. Also, the back gesture is enabled in the keyboard, so when I tried deleting long text, it would often send me back instead.
There are a few silver linings I wish others would copy from HyperOS, one major one being the lockscreen customizations. There are so many options, and every one of them looks gorgeous. As this is 2026, there’s a host of AI features, such as object eraser, image upscaling, and inpainting. I tried them all, and they work exactly as you’d expect. The company also promises about six years of major software updates and security patches. This is better than vivo’s five years.
Benchmarks & Gaming
As this is a review, I also ran a series of benchmarks to test the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5’s limits. The phone scored 3,415 in Geekbench’s single-core test and 10,008 in the multi-core test. These are insane numbers, especially when compared with the likes of the vivo X300 Pro and the Find X9, which score about 20%-30% lower in multi-core tests. The story remained similar on AnTuTu, where the Xiaomi 17 handsomely beat its Chinese rivals, scoring 3,423,349.
As expected, this performance translates extremely well in gaming. I’m a former PUBG (BGMI) eSports player, and my results were exceptional. The phone maintained 120 FPS gameplay even at high settings without a hint of stutter. I also like Xiaomi’s thermal management, which kept the phone from overheating during both gaming and photo capture in Thailand’s hot summer.
Battery Life & Charging
After all the chatter about the small form factor, you may expect the Xiaomi 17 to compromise on the battery life, just as other Apple and Samsung phones do. Well, you can’t be more wrong, as the Xiaomi 17 packs an even bigger battery, 6,330mAh to be precise, than the 17 Ultra. And the results are just fantastic. On the morning of my Thailand flight, I unplugged the phone at 5 am. I then continued using the phone for the rest of the day, including the three hours of The Pitt on the flight and map navigation when reaching Phuket airport. I ended the day with 20% remaining, and at 3 am the next morning, I had 20% remaining. For a more typical person, you’d be looking more at two days of usage without a hitch.
When it was finally time to charge, Xiaomi, unlike Samsung, bundles a 100W fast charger in the box that charges the phone from 20% to 80% in just 30 minutes. You also get 50W of reverse wireless charging, though that requires a specific charger.
Cameras
If a phone doesn’t fold in half or has dual screens, the only way to differentiate itself is through the cameras. They are the main reason why people lean towards a certain brand, and recently, both OPPO and vivo have been killing it. However, I think there’s room for a third king: the Xiaomi 17. Like others, it also houses a triple-sensor array, led by the 50MP LightFusion 950 sensor, a 50MP JN1 60mm telephoto, and another 50MP OV50M ultrawide lens. Colors are handled by Leica, and that’s the main strength of the Xiaomi 17. The photos it takes, with the different Leica filters, have a certain character you won’t find anywhere else. Every phone takes similar photos these days, and it’s these color profiles that matter the most.
Still, if you’re not a fan of poking around with the cameras, the default Leica Authentic profile produces colors that are very close to natural, with highlights and shadows handled extremely well. The details are crisp and plenty, the HDR performance is mostly spot on, and the contrast is slightly on the boosted side, which is what I like. Beyond the default camera profile, there are a myriad of filters, such as Negative, Positive, Sepia, Natural, Vibrant, and Blue. Each has a different style of capturing the colors and subject, and I really did find myself going through each and every one of them to decide which actually serves the scene the best. And the results speak for themselves. Every photo tells a different story, and that’s the Xiaomi 17’s biggest strength.
The telephoto lens is 2.5x, and I’d say the same about it, too. It serves as the main portrait camera, and the images deliver stellar detail, with excellent foreground separation and improved natural skin tones without the infamous beautification. Xiaomi doesn’t rely much on AI processing, so zooming past 5x-6x will result in blurry photos. Keep that in mind. The ultrawide hasn’t changed from the previous generation, so it still doesn’t have autofocus for macro photography. While it works great when the light is ample, I saw a significant drop in quality at night.
Speaking of the night, both the main and telephoto sensors benefit from Xiaomi’s mature image processing, which retains detail in shadows without making the image muddy or introducing noise. Videos, which can be shot at up to 8K, carry similar details in all lighting conditions, and I’m a fan. Sadly, it’s not all perfect. In Thailand’s heat, some of the videos I captured were choppy, even when I was in the hotel. This problem then carried over to India, where the first few seconds of every video would stutter. I’ve communicated this issue with the Xiaomi team, so a fix could be imminent. Overall, I love the Xiaomi 17’s cameras.
Verdict
Sure, the ₹89,999 price tag of the Xiaomi 17 might feel a bit much, considering it’s more than the vivo and OPPO competition. But the Xiaomi 17 brings a lot of things to the table. You get the best-in-class performance that’s miles ahead of the competition. A design that’s understated yet premium. Battery life that can easily last two full days, and cameras that, instead of being same same but different, induce a character to each and every photo that makes them more memorable. Of course, it’s not perfect. I’d like the camera bugs fixed and ultrawide performance improved, but overall, the Xiaomi 17 gets my recommendation.
Xiaomi phones are a little tough to judge. After all, these guys do everything, from making phones to laptops and sometimes even record-breaking electric SUVs. The Xiaomi 17 is a bit like the quiet kid that never gets noticed, simply because its bigger brother, the 17 Ultra, is on a streak of collecting all the best smartphone camera awards. But here’s the thing: most people won’t ever splurge that much money on a non-Samsung or Apple Ultra flagship. The main sales driver will always be the base model, and that’s the question I had in mind. Can the Xiaomi 17 go head-to-head with the OPPO Find X9 and the vivo X300, especially since it’s more expensive than both? You can thank AI for that.
To answer this very question, I got the Xiaomi 17 for review and took it with me on a work trip to Phuket, Thailand. Here, I used the phone to capture about 500 photos in the summer heat, with temperatures soaring to 40 degrees, and constant GPS navigation to put the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC through its paces. Spoiler alert, I really do love this phone, but there are a few quirks, too. Here’s why.
Xiaomi 17 Review
Hisan Kidwai
Summary
The Xiaomi 17 brings a lot of things to the table. You get the best-in-class performance that’s miles ahead of the competition. A design that’s understated yet premium. Battery life that can easily last two full days, and cameras that, instead of being same same but different, induce a character to each and every photo that makes them more memorable. Of course, it’s not perfect. I’d like the camera bugs fixed and ultrawide performance improved, but overall, the Xiaomi 17 gets my recommendation.
Design & Hardware
If Apple were ever going to make an Android phone, then they’d probably design something like the Xiaomi 17. I wouldn’t describe the build as flashy, but it’s super elegant and reminiscent of past Xiaomi flagships. I talked about this in my X300 Pro review, as creating a brand identity to compete against Samsung and Apple is super important, and Xiaomi has listened. While I was using it daily, many of my friends and family asked me what Xiaomi phone I was using—note the wording: “Xiaomi phone,” meaning they knew it was a particular brand, and that’s important. The Chinese smartphone maker said they thought of every curve, and I’ll just say it straight: the 17 is the best-feeling compact phone I’ve held this year.
The corners are crafted to perfection, the width is spot on, and even the way the aluminum frame blends into the glass without an abrupt edge makes carrying the phone a very enjoyable experience. Beyond that, the back glass is frosted to prevent the phone from slipping off glass surfaces, and the side frame doesn’t let go of its color inside a case.
Speaking of color, you get plenty of options, but my favorite is definitely the blue variant, as it has that breezy summer vibe. The buttons are tactile and positioned where your hand would naturally rest.
Moving to the camera module, Xiaomi has taken the iPhone route of individual stove-top camera cutouts. There are four of them (one houses the flash), and aside from the fact that dust is difficult to get out from between, I do quite like them. The ultrasonic fingerprint scanner is positioned at a comfy place where your thumb would naturally rest. I used it on the beach with wet hands, and it worked perfectly fine. Besides, the phone is IP69-rated for dust and water resistance, meaning it should technically withstand a swim. Did I dare take it inside the water on the beach? Absolutely not, because the IP rating is only for fresh water, and seawater can cause irreversible damage.
Display
I’ve said this before that all flagship displays are essentially the same, and that holds true for the Xiaomi 17, too. The phone features a 6.3-inch 1220 x 2656 OLED display, with an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate. This time, Xiaomi has trimmed the bezels even more for a more premium look, and I’m a fan. The panel is exceptionally color-accurate and vibrant for content consumption, as evidenced by my 3-hour run of The Pitt season 2 on the flight to Thailand. Even the HDR performance is exceptional.
Xiaomi claims a peak brightness number of 3,500 nits. Sadly, I don’t have a light meter to put the claim to the test, but from my experience using the panel in the 12 noon sun at Phi Phi Island, it’s plenty bright for outdoor use. The texts were legible, and I could use the phone for GPS navigation without squinting.
When it comes to durability, I usually don’t like to test that part myself and instead rely on user reports. However, I accidentally dropped the Xiaomi 17 on a concrete floor. The result was surprisingly good. I dropped it, without a case, from a tripod at chest height, meaning that, while the phone was in the air, all sorts of scary thoughts came to mind, including how much this repair was going to cost me. Thankfully, the phone escaped with only minor damage to the frame.
Performance & Software
Performance is what makes or breaks the smartphone experience, and it’s no surprise to anyone that the Xiaomi 17 delivers top-of-the-line performance. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is the best Android processor in the market, and it’s coupled with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 4.1 internal storage. The results? The Xiaomi 17 is an absolute joy to use. It flies through the UI like nothing, and there’s ample headroom for literally any task. That being said, the phone runs on HyperOS 3, which, for the uninitiated, is a very altered version of Android that resembles more like iOS.
I don’t have a problem with the look, especially since HyperOS is one of the smoothest Android skins, with silky animations and a lot of customization. My issue is that, unlike other Chinese skins that allow you to tone down the iOS-ness, Xiaomi doesn’t.
For example, the notification shade is divided into two sections: the quick control and the panel. I don’t like that, but when I went digging in the settings to find a way to merge them, there wasn’t. Also, the back gesture is enabled in the keyboard, so when I tried deleting long text, it would often send me back instead.
There are a few silver linings I wish others would copy from HyperOS, one major one being the lockscreen customizations. There are so many options, and every one of them looks gorgeous. As this is 2026, there’s a host of AI features, such as object eraser, image upscaling, and inpainting. I tried them all, and they work exactly as you’d expect. The company also promises about six years of major software updates and security patches. This is better than vivo’s five years.
Benchmarks & Gaming
As this is a review, I also ran a series of benchmarks to test the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5’s limits. The phone scored 3,415 in Geekbench’s single-core test and 10,008 in the multi-core test. These are insane numbers, especially when compared with the likes of the vivo X300 Pro and the Find X9, which score about 20%-30% lower in multi-core tests. The story remained similar on AnTuTu, where the Xiaomi 17 handsomely beat its Chinese rivals, scoring 3,423,349.
As expected, this performance translates extremely well in gaming. I’m a former PUBG (BGMI) eSports player, and my results were exceptional. The phone maintained 120 FPS gameplay even at high settings without a hint of stutter. I also like Xiaomi’s thermal management, which kept the phone from overheating during both gaming and photo capture in Thailand’s hot summer.
Battery Life & Charging
After all the chatter about the small form factor, you may expect the Xiaomi 17 to compromise on the battery life, just as other Apple and Samsung phones do. Well, you can’t be more wrong, as the Xiaomi 17 packs an even bigger battery, 6,330mAh to be precise, than the 17 Ultra. And the results are just fantastic. On the morning of my Thailand flight, I unplugged the phone at 5 am. I then continued using the phone for the rest of the day, including the three hours of The Pitt on the flight and map navigation when reaching Phuket airport. I ended the day with 20% remaining, and at 3 am the next morning, I had 20% remaining. For a more typical person, you’d be looking more at two days of usage without a hitch.
When it was finally time to charge, Xiaomi, unlike Samsung, bundles a 100W fast charger in the box that charges the phone from 20% to 80% in just 30 minutes. You also get 50W of reverse wireless charging, though that requires a specific charger.
Cameras
If a phone doesn’t fold in half or has dual screens, the only way to differentiate itself is through the cameras. They are the main reason why people lean towards a certain brand, and recently, both OPPO and vivo have been killing it. However, I think there’s room for a third king: the Xiaomi 17. Like others, it also houses a triple-sensor array, led by the 50MP LightFusion 950 sensor, a 50MP JN1 60mm telephoto, and another 50MP OV50M ultrawide lens. Colors are handled by Leica, and that’s the main strength of the Xiaomi 17. The photos it takes, with the different Leica filters, have a certain character you won’t find anywhere else. Every phone takes similar photos these days, and it’s these color profiles that matter the most.
Still, if you’re not a fan of poking around with the cameras, the default Leica Authentic profile produces colors that are very close to natural, with highlights and shadows handled extremely well. The details are crisp and plenty, the HDR performance is mostly spot on, and the contrast is slightly on the boosted side, which is what I like. Beyond the default camera profile, there are a myriad of filters, such as Negative, Positive, Sepia, Natural, Vibrant, and Blue. Each has a different style of capturing the colors and subject, and I really did find myself going through each and every one of them to decide which actually serves the scene the best. And the results speak for themselves. Every photo tells a different story, and that’s the Xiaomi 17’s biggest strength.
The telephoto lens is 2.5x, and I’d say the same about it, too. It serves as the main portrait camera, and the images deliver stellar detail, with excellent foreground separation and improved natural skin tones without the infamous beautification. Xiaomi doesn’t rely much on AI processing, so zooming past 5x-6x will result in blurry photos. Keep that in mind. The ultrawide hasn’t changed from the previous generation, so it still doesn’t have autofocus for macro photography. While it works great when the light is ample, I saw a significant drop in quality at night.
Speaking of the night, both the main and telephoto sensors benefit from Xiaomi’s mature image processing, which retains detail in shadows without making the image muddy or introducing noise. Videos, which can be shot at up to 8K, carry similar details in all lighting conditions, and I’m a fan. Sadly, it’s not all perfect. In Thailand’s heat, some of the videos I captured were choppy, even when I was in the hotel. This problem then carried over to India, where the first few seconds of every video would stutter. I’ve communicated this issue with the Xiaomi team, so a fix could be imminent. Overall, I love the Xiaomi 17’s cameras.
Verdict
Sure, the ₹89,999 price tag of the Xiaomi 17 might feel a bit much, considering it’s more than the vivo and OPPO competition. But the Xiaomi 17 brings a lot of things to the table. You get the best-in-class performance that’s miles ahead of the competition. A design that’s understated yet premium. Battery life that can easily last two full days, and cameras that, instead of being same same but different, induce a character to each and every photo that makes them more memorable. Of course, it’s not perfect. I’d like the camera bugs fixed and ultrawide performance improved, but overall, the Xiaomi 17 gets my recommendation.
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#Xiaomi #Review #Thailand #Real #Camera #Test
The security research by Norwegian cybersecurity company Mnemonic describes a perfect storm of problems that allows low-quality apps to proliferate across Samsung’s app store, containing code that puts users at risk of having their internet connections tapped by a rogue app.
Many of these apps are barebone shells, made from only a few lines of code, and are designed solely to load content from another website, such as a game. While such smart TV apps load content from another server, any review of these apps sees only the few lines of code within, and not necessarily the content itself.
“What was reviewed is not necessarily what is running,” wrote Harrison Sand, an offensive security consultant at Mnemonic.
After TechCrunch contacted Samsung with a request for comment about the research, the electronics giant said in an emailed statement that it was banning apps that share their users’ internet connections, and will remove apps that contain the functionality.
“We have already restricted new app registrations that incorporate such proxy functionalities on our Smart TV platform,” said a Samsung spokesperson. “We are currently implementing strict platform-wide developer policies explicitly banning residential proxy SDKs, and we are working to identify and remove all apps currently available in our store that contain these components.”
The move comes after LG said last month that it would ban apps that contain resproxy software after recent reporting found that around 42% of apps on the company’s app store enlisted a smart TV into a proxy network.
Inside a residential proxy network
The research also offers a rare look inside a residential proxy network.
Resproxy code can also be found in regular consumer phone apps, as well as other consumer electronics, like digital frames and Android streaming boxes, which then share that device’s internet connection.
Any time a resproxy app or device connects to the internet, an outsider can also pay to use it.
Resproxies are not inherently illegal. Some are used for evading censorship by routing internet traffic through ordinary looking residential homes. AI companies, for example, increasingly rely on resproxies to scrape data from multiple places on the internet in one go to train their AI models.
But cybersecurity companies say resproxies have gained a reputation for allowing hackers and spies to carry out cyberattacks and data breaches while hiding their malicious activity.
Cybersecurity companies find resproxies challenging to tackle because the network traffic looks like it’s coming from an ordinary household, rather than a malicious hacker located overseas, as they might expect.
Moreover, the network traffic that flows through a user’s device over resproxies is generally encrypted, which is generally impossible to unscramble and inspect.
By rooting a Samsung smart TV’s software, Mnemonic’s Sand gained deep access to the television’s internals and analyzed all of the network traffic that flowed in and out of the TV. This included any app that was sharing the smart TV’s internet connection with someone else.
He found the Pac-Man game contained resproxy code from Bright Data, an Israel-based company that provides proxy networks touting access to millions of residential networks around the world. The company also has a marketplace for selling access to scraped data sets. These datasets are derived from a network of enlisted smart TVs as exit nodes, which are used to download large amounts of public data from the web from multiple sources at once, often to circumvent systems designed to prevent scraping.
Sand found that Bright Data’s resproxy code loaded when opening the Pac-Man game, but noted that this did not automatically turn the Samsung smart TV into an exit node. Sand said the resproxy code is dormant until the user accepts a consent screen, which immediately activates the resproxy code to run in the background until the user deletes the app.
Aside from the user themselves consenting to enlisting their device into a resproxy, Sand warned that a “simple code change on a web server” could instantly activate hundreds of millions of smart TVs into a potentially malicious botnet.
With access to the network data flowing through his smart TV, Sand could see that much of it appeared to suggest the resproxy network was used for large-scale scraping of LinkedIn profiles, and for collecting AI training data. Sand said he only saw a tiny percentage of what was routed over Bright Data’s network.
Bright Data did not respond to a request for comment.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
The security research by Norwegian cybersecurity company Mnemonic describes a perfect storm of problems that allows low-quality apps to proliferate across Samsung’s app store, containing code that puts users at risk of having their internet connections tapped by a rogue app.
Many of these apps are barebone shells, made from only a few lines of code, and are designed solely to load content from another website, such as a game. While such smart TV apps load content from another server, any review of these apps sees only the few lines of code within, and not necessarily the content itself.
“What was reviewed is not necessarily what is running,” wrote Harrison Sand, an offensive security consultant at Mnemonic.
After TechCrunch contacted Samsung with a request for comment about the research, the electronics giant said in an emailed statement that it was banning apps that share their users’ internet connections, and will remove apps that contain the functionality.
“We have already restricted new app registrations that incorporate such proxy functionalities on our Smart TV platform,” said a Samsung spokesperson. “We are currently implementing strict platform-wide developer policies explicitly banning residential proxy SDKs, and we are working to identify and remove all apps currently available in our store that contain these components.”
The move comes after LG said last month that it would ban apps that contain resproxy software after recent reporting found that around 42% of apps on the company’s app store enlisted a smart TV into a proxy network.
Inside a residential proxy network
The research also offers a rare look inside a residential proxy network.
Resproxy code can also be found in regular consumer phone apps, as well as other consumer electronics, like digital frames and Android streaming boxes, which then share that device’s internet connection.
Any time a resproxy app or device connects to the internet, an outsider can also pay to use it.
Resproxies are not inherently illegal. Some are used for evading censorship by routing internet traffic through ordinary looking residential homes. AI companies, for example, increasingly rely on resproxies to scrape data from multiple places on the internet in one go to train their AI models.
But cybersecurity companies say resproxies have gained a reputation for allowing hackers and spies to carry out cyberattacks and data breaches while hiding their malicious activity.
Cybersecurity companies find resproxies challenging to tackle because the network traffic looks like it’s coming from an ordinary household, rather than a malicious hacker located overseas, as they might expect.
Moreover, the network traffic that flows through a user’s device over resproxies is generally encrypted, which is generally impossible to unscramble and inspect.
By rooting a Samsung smart TV’s software, Mnemonic’s Sand gained deep access to the television’s internals and analyzed all of the network traffic that flowed in and out of the TV. This included any app that was sharing the smart TV’s internet connection with someone else.
He found the Pac-Man game contained resproxy code from Bright Data, an Israel-based company that provides proxy networks touting access to millions of residential networks around the world. The company also has a marketplace for selling access to scraped data sets. These datasets are derived from a network of enlisted smart TVs as exit nodes, which are used to download large amounts of public data from the web from multiple sources at once, often to circumvent systems designed to prevent scraping.
Sand found that Bright Data’s resproxy code loaded when opening the Pac-Man game, but noted that this did not automatically turn the Samsung smart TV into an exit node. Sand said the resproxy code is dormant until the user accepts a consent screen, which immediately activates the resproxy code to run in the background until the user deletes the app.
Aside from the user themselves consenting to enlisting their device into a resproxy, Sand warned that a “simple code change on a web server” could instantly activate hundreds of millions of smart TVs into a potentially malicious botnet.
With access to the network data flowing through his smart TV, Sand could see that much of it appeared to suggest the resproxy network was used for large-scale scraping of LinkedIn profiles, and for collecting AI training data. Sand said he only saw a tiny percentage of what was routed over Bright Data’s network.
Bright Data did not respond to a request for comment.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
#Samsung #bans #smart #apps #share #users #internet #connections #strangers #TechCrunchcyberattacks,cybersecurity,Exclusive,privacy,residential proxy networks,Samsung">Samsung bans smart TV apps that share users’ internet connections with strangers | TechCrunch
Several popular Samsung smart TV apps contain code that share the owner’s internet connection with strangers, potentially putting millions of Samsung smart TVs at risk of hijacking, according to new security research published on Monday.
Some of these apps claim to have been installed on hundreds of millions of smart TVs in people’s homes, per the app developers.
At least one of the smart TV apps was a simple Pac-Man game that Samsung had endorsed and prominently featured in its “Editor’s Choice” section on customers’ TV screens.
These apps contain software that funnels outsiders’ web traffic through ordinary home and office internet connections, known as residential proxy networks (or “resproxies”), which are increasingly being linked to cybercrime. When opened, apps with resproxy code can turn the smart TV into an always-on tunnel for outsiders to funnel their web traffic through, known as an exit node — even when the app is no longer open.
The security research by Norwegian cybersecurity company Mnemonic describes a perfect storm of problems that allows low-quality apps to proliferate across Samsung’s app store, containing code that puts users at risk of having their internet connections tapped by a rogue app.
Many of these apps are barebone shells, made from only a few lines of code, and are designed solely to load content from another website, such as a game. While such smart TV apps load content from another server, any review of these apps sees only the few lines of code within, and not necessarily the content itself.
“What was reviewed is not necessarily what is running,” wrote Harrison Sand, an offensive security consultant at Mnemonic.
After TechCrunch contacted Samsung with a request for comment about the research, the electronics giant said in an emailed statement that it was banning apps that share their users’ internet connections, and will remove apps that contain the functionality.
“We have already restricted new app registrations that incorporate such proxy functionalities on our Smart TV platform,” said a Samsung spokesperson. “We are currently implementing strict platform-wide developer policies explicitly banning residential proxy SDKs, and we are working to identify and remove all apps currently available in our store that contain these components.”
The move comes after LG said last month that it would ban apps that contain resproxy software after recent reporting found that around 42% of apps on the company’s app store enlisted a smart TV into a proxy network.
Inside a residential proxy network
The research also offers a rare look inside a residential proxy network.
Resproxy code can also be found in regular consumer phone apps, as well as other consumer electronics, like digital frames and Android streaming boxes, which then share that device’s internet connection.
Any time a resproxy app or device connects to the internet, an outsider can also pay to use it.
Resproxies are not inherently illegal. Some are used for evading censorship by routing internet traffic through ordinary looking residential homes. AI companies, for example, increasingly rely on resproxies to scrape data from multiple places on the internet in one go to train their AI models.
But cybersecurity companies say resproxies have gained a reputation for allowing hackers and spies to carry out cyberattacks and data breaches while hiding their malicious activity.
Cybersecurity companies find resproxies challenging to tackle because the network traffic looks like it’s coming from an ordinary household, rather than a malicious hacker located overseas, as they might expect.
Moreover, the network traffic that flows through a user’s device over resproxies is generally encrypted, which is generally impossible to unscramble and inspect.
By rooting a Samsung smart TV’s software, Mnemonic’s Sand gained deep access to the television’s internals and analyzed all of the network traffic that flowed in and out of the TV. This included any app that was sharing the smart TV’s internet connection with someone else.
He found the Pac-Man game contained resproxy code from Bright Data, an Israel-based company that provides proxy networks touting access to millions of residential networks around the world. The company also has a marketplace for selling access to scraped data sets. These datasets are derived from a network of enlisted smart TVs as exit nodes, which are used to download large amounts of public data from the web from multiple sources at once, often to circumvent systems designed to prevent scraping.
Sand found that Bright Data’s resproxy code loaded when opening the Pac-Man game, but noted that this did not automatically turn the Samsung smart TV into an exit node. Sand said the resproxy code is dormant until the user accepts a consent screen, which immediately activates the resproxy code to run in the background until the user deletes the app.
Aside from the user themselves consenting to enlisting their device into a resproxy, Sand warned that a “simple code change on a web server” could instantly activate hundreds of millions of smart TVs into a potentially malicious botnet.
With access to the network data flowing through his smart TV, Sand could see that much of it appeared to suggest the resproxy network was used for large-scale scraping of LinkedIn profiles, and for collecting AI training data. Sand said he only saw a tiny percentage of what was routed over Bright Data’s network.
Bright Data did not respond to a request for comment.
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KRAFTON India has introduced the new Druvaen X-Suit Collection for BATTLEGROUNDS MOBILE INDIA (BGMI) as part of the 4.5 season. The update introduces three new 7-Star X-Suits, including Verdant Druvaen, Pyre Druvaen, and Frost Druvaen. Despite their unique themes, all three belong to the same Druvaen bloodline.
New Upgrade System Lets Players Earn Progress
The latest BGMI update introduces a new way to upgrade X-Suits. Players now earn a special upgrade material by playing matches instead of buying it. This material cannot be purchased, traded, or obtained anywhere else in the game. The new system rewards players for spending more time in matches.
Players who unlock a single X-Suit automatically enter the new upgrade path with that suit. Those who unlock two or all three X-Suits must choose one suit for gameplay-based progression. This choice is permanent and cannot be changed later. Gamers can always upgrade the rest of the X-Suits from the BGMI X-Suit Upgrade Program.
The new set also includes the Naturespirit Growth ACE32, which is an upgradable Level 7 weapon skin. The weapon skin has the same design concept as the X-Suits and allows the user to match both the suit and the weapon in battle.
Availability of Three New Druvaen X-Suits
Players will get access to the whole Druvaen X-Suit Collection between August 1 and September 30, 2026. The new X-Suits can be unlocked, and players will have the chance to try out the gameplay-upgrade feature as well as receive the Naturespirit Growth ACE32. These changes will be announced by BGMI through YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook channels.
KRAFTON India has introduced the new Druvaen X-Suit Collection for BATTLEGROUNDS MOBILE INDIA (BGMI) as part of the 4.5 season. The update introduces three new 7-Star X-Suits, including Verdant Druvaen, Pyre Druvaen, and Frost Druvaen. Despite their unique themes, all three belong to the same Druvaen bloodline.
New Upgrade System Lets Players Earn Progress
The latest BGMI update introduces a new way to upgrade X-Suits. Players now earn a special upgrade material by playing matches instead of buying it. This material cannot be purchased, traded, or obtained anywhere else in the game. The new system rewards players for spending more time in matches.
Players who unlock a single X-Suit automatically enter the new upgrade path with that suit. Those who unlock two or all three X-Suits must choose one suit for gameplay-based progression. This choice is permanent and cannot be changed later. Gamers can always upgrade the rest of the X-Suits from the BGMI X-Suit Upgrade Program.
The new set also includes the Naturespirit Growth ACE32, which is an upgradable Level 7 weapon skin. The weapon skin has the same design concept as the X-Suits and allows the user to match both the suit and the weapon in battle.
Availability of Three New Druvaen X-Suits
Players will get access to the whole Druvaen X-Suit Collection between August 1 and September 30, 2026. The new X-Suits can be unlocked, and players will have the chance to try out the gameplay-upgrade feature as well as receive the Naturespirit Growth ACE32. These changes will be announced by BGMI through YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook channels.
#BGMI #Update #Brings #Druvaen #XSuits #PlayersBGMI,Krafton">BGMI 4.5 Update Brings Three New Druvaen X-Suits to Players
KRAFTON India has introduced the new Druvaen X-Suit Collection for BATTLEGROUNDS MOBILE INDIA (BGMI) as part of the 4.5 season. The update introduces three new 7-Star X-Suits, including Verdant Druvaen, Pyre Druvaen, and Frost Druvaen. Despite their unique themes, all three belong to the same Druvaen bloodline.
New Upgrade System Lets Players Earn Progress
The latest BGMI update introduces a new way to upgrade X-Suits. Players now earn a special upgrade material by playing matches instead of buying it. This material cannot be purchased, traded, or obtained anywhere else in the game. The new system rewards players for spending more time in matches.
Players who unlock a single X-Suit automatically enter the new upgrade path with that suit. Those who unlock two or all three X-Suits must choose one suit for gameplay-based progression. This choice is permanent and cannot be changed later. Gamers can always upgrade the rest of the X-Suits from the BGMI X-Suit Upgrade Program.
The new set also includes the Naturespirit Growth ACE32, which is an upgradable Level 7 weapon skin. The weapon skin has the same design concept as the X-Suits and allows the user to match both the suit and the weapon in battle.
Availability of Three New Druvaen X-Suits
Players will get access to the whole Druvaen X-Suit Collection between August 1 and September 30, 2026. The new X-Suits can be unlocked, and players will have the chance to try out the gameplay-upgrade feature as well as receive the Naturespirit Growth ACE32. These changes will be announced by BGMI through YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook channels.
Ubisoft’s biggest franchise found itself in the perfect position to capitalize on ‘The Odyssey’ and its ongoing success.#Odyssey #Big #People #Assassins #CreedAssassin’s Creed,Christopher Nolan,The Odyssey">
Ubisoft’s biggest franchise found itself in the perfect position to capitalize on ‘The Odyssey’ and its ongoing success.#Odyssey #Big #People #Assassins #CreedAssassin’s Creed,Christopher Nolan,The Odyssey">‘The Odyssey’ Is So Big, It’s Made People Like ‘Assassin’s Creed’ Again Ubisoft’s biggest franchise found itself in the perfect position to capitalize on ‘The Odyssey’ and its ongoing success.#Odyssey #Big #People #Assassins #CreedAssassin’s Creed,Christopher Nolan,The Odyssey
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