Amazon Fire TV receives essential update to make streaming safer than ever

Fire TV is Amazon’s media player that allows TV lovers to take advantage of a range of services including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and BBC iPlayer.

But some models that were produced before 2017 were exposed to malware back in June that took advantage of a vital security flaw.

Fire TV’s have a feature known as Android Debut Bridge (ADB) that allows apps to be installed that are not on the device’s native store.

But connections using ADB can be harnessed for malicious purposes.

This led to a worm that used Fire TV units to mine cryptocurrency.

Devices that were being plagued by the harmful software did not make it immediately clear there was a problem.

Users had to deal with a service that was severely delayed in loading due to the hardware focusing on other tasks.

Older Amazon Fire TV’s allowed the user to turn on ADB, but once triggered it did not provide users with an option to accept or deny relevant connection requests.

Instead it would allow all ADB connections to go through without alerting those watching.

This was later remedied in newer Fire TV units.

These include the Amazon Fire TV Cube and Fire TV 3.

The toggle for ADB debugging was only available through the developer options menu of the Fire TV.

The latest software iteration will turn off ADB by default and prompt users when connections are trying to be established, according to AFTVNews.

This will allow customers to accept connections they are aware of and deny ones that appear harmful.

The new software is available for Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Sticks and Amazon Fire TV Edition televisions.