Android Exploit Could Expose Billions of Devices to Hackers

A new bug found in the native Android software has been discovered by security firm Zimperium. This flaw is similar to the Apple Text hack from a few weeks ago, except that the hack could expose your valuable data and encrypted passwords. Zimperium says that control of your microphone could be taken over to record your calls, credit card details could be acquired and private emails and data could be accessed.  

"The targets for this kind of attack can be anyone from Prime ministers, govt. officials, company executives, security officers to IT managers,"

The hack works by embedding a string of code into a multimedia text message and then that text message is sent to your phone. This is where the issue comes in. Your phone is designed to parse that text message instantly and it is at that point that the malware has been injected into your device. That means you could exposed even before the notification sound has gone off in your phone. The potential for a completely silent attack on your phone is quite alarming.

In post on Zimperiums website, they say 95 percent of Android devices worldwide are vulnerable. "The targets for this kind of attack can be anyone from Prime ministers, govt. officials, company executives, security officers to IT managers," they warned.

But the good news is, as soon as this exploit was discovered, Zimperium sent the fault to Google and also the patch to fix the issue. Google has responded by saying "This vulnerability was identified in a laboratory setting on older Android devices, and as far as we know, no one has been affected. As soon as we were made aware of the vulnerability we took immediate action and sent a fix to our partners to protect users."

So it looks like the issue has been fixed before anyone has been affected, but these fixes are rolled out in the form of updates to your phone's software. So if you have pending updates due, make sure you apply them! If you don't know how to update your phone, come see us at Techrevive.



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