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Do you use an Android device? If so, read on and take action to prevent a malware infection.
Researchers at Indiana University and Microsoft Research have discovered six separate Android vulnerabilities which when exploited can turn those completely harmless Android applications running on your device into malicious applications, when you upgrade the Android operating system. Google has been notified of the flaws and has closed some of the identified vulnerabilities and one of these has already been patched. During this period of time between when the identified vulnerabilities having been identified are sitting on your device and the time when Google patches (corrects the flaw) the vulnerability we recommend that you take a pro-active course of action. The researchers have created an application of their own “Secure Update Scanner” and it is available for FREE download on Google Play or Amazon AppStore for Android. It is recommended that you run this application, BEFORE, any operating system update, as it scans the device to detect any malicious applications which exploit the identified vulnerabilities and provides instructions on how to uninstall the malicious applications.
About the vulnerabilities:
The research paper, “Upgrading Your Android, Elevating My Malware: Privilege Escalation Through Mobile OS Updating” provides the science and methodologies of how the “pile-up” (privilege escalation through updating) vulnerability evolves on users devices. Of note, the researchers tested a multitude of devices and versions of the Android Operating System, which answered our question, “Are there some devices better than others?” – it would appear that all devices using the Android operating system are equally vulnerable. To follow the continued remediation of these vulnerabilities, you may wish to periodically check the website the researchers created to accompany their scanning application: SecUP (Secure Update Scanner).
The researchers specifically call out the consequences of the vulnerabilities:
[custom_blockquote style=”black”] The consequences of the attacks are dire, depending on the exploit opportunities on different Android devices, that is, the natures of the new resources on the target version of an update. As examples, on various versions of Android, an upgrade allows the unprivileged malware to get the permissions for accessing voicemails, user credentials, call logs, notifications of other apps, sending SMS, starting any activity regardless of permission protection or export state, etc.; the malware can also gain complete control of new signature and system permissions, lowering their protection levels to “normal” and arbitrarily changing their descriptions that the user needs to read when deciding on whether to grant them to an app; it can even replace the official Google Calendar app with a malicious one to get the phone user’s events, drop Javascript code in the data directory to be used by the new Android browser so as to steal the user’s sensitive data, or prevent her from installing critical system apps such as Google Play Services.[/custom_blockquote]We continue to advocate keeping your operating system up-to-date as a key to securing the vulnerabilities in your devices. Having your operating system updated, remains a valid means by which new vulnerabilities found can be closed and as Google pushes out new updates, and the various versions of the Android source code are updated, update your device.
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