Amazon has pulled a convenient new feature for Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Cube owners worldwide overnight due to security concerns. The promising new functionality was only introduced last month and allowed viewers to enter passwords, search for new shows, and control playback from the web browser on their smartphone, tablet, or laptop.
The team at AFTV News were first to unearth the functionality last month, which allowed anyone to type-in passwords, search for specific shows or actors, or navigate around parts of the Fire TV interface with a phone, tablet or laptop web browser
Without any fanfare, Smart TV or streaming set-top box viewers who had updated to the latest version of Amazon’s Fire TV software noticed that alongside the on-screen keyboard, Amazon would surface a QR code.
Scanning the QR code with the camera on your tablet or phone would load a webpage in your web browser under the keyboard.amazonfiretvapp.com domain. Each QR code is unique, so you’dimmediately be able to control your Fire TV as soon as the website loads.
There was no extra verificationstep or need to log in with an Amazon account. You'd simply start typing, with every character would appear almost instantaneously on-screen. However, it's this ease of use that seems to be behind the decision to pull the feature without warning.
Visiting the webpage now returns an error message that states the site is "under maintenance". It seems the concerns around the security of the QR code-powered feature were first flagged by technology company Green Line Analytics. After it was approached with evidence, Amazon made the decision to suspend the feature for the foreseeable future while it started a full investigation.
In a statement to Fire TV-focused blog AFTVnews, a spokesperson for Amazon said: "We appreciate the work of independent researchers to help bring issues to our attention. While we’re still reviewing this research, we immediately disabled the QR feature at issue for Fire TV customers, which fully mitigates the scenario described by the researchers. We look forward to bringing this feature back for customers soon."
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Amazon still offers a digital version of its Fire TV remote control available to download as a smartphone app on iPhone and Android. This mobile app includes all controls found on the physical remote, making it a fully-fledged replacement if you lose the remote that shipped in the box.
If you do misplace your remote, Amazon does sell replacements in its popular online store too.
