[Android Security 2015] New Android vulnerabilities

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New Android Critical Vulnerabilities

1. CVE-2015-1538 Exploit for Android is Now Available for Testing Purposes

This exploit has several caveats. First, it is not a generic exploit. Zimperium Team only tested it to work on a single device model. Zimperium Team tested this exploit on a Nexus running Android 4.0.4. Also, due to variances in heap layout, this is not a 100% reliable exploit by itself.

Zimperium Team were able achieve 100% reliability when delivered through an attack vector that allowed multiple attempts. Finally, this vulnerability was one of several that was neutered by GCC 5.0’s ‘new[]’ integer overflow mitigation present on Android 5.0 and later.

Banker Trojans still threaten Android users

The Android’s ecosystem is very open  and as a consequence of freedom, fraudsters easy spread malware.

As the number of people using smartphones to manage bank accounts, cyberhawks increasingly targets to the mobile users.

“Banking Trojans on mobile were largely successful targeting older generation operating systems like J2ME and Blackberry, but haven’t made the headway they’d probably like to on Android and iOS”, – said Armando Orozco of Malwarebytes.

According to the expert, in the iOS platform has not been found any Trojan, probably because it is very difficult to put malware in the Apple App Store. The same can not be said about Android, but here banker Trojans are not yet fully settled.

The new Android-Trojan steals user data

Symantec yesterday warned of the discovery of a new malware that may already steal data from thousands of infected devices in less than two weeks.

New malware Android.Exprespam was first detected in mid-January, and according to virus analysts, it is active for at least two weeks.

Despite the brief period, the antivirus company points out that the code was able to make his victims many thousands of users. “Our data – this is only a small fraction of the total, indicating that from 13 to 20 January 3000 was no less affected” – said Yoji Hamada, Analyst Symantec. “Based on our analysis, we can say that the scammers have stolen from 75 000 to 450 000 users”.

Discovered the first Mobile SMS Spam Botnet

Experts specializing in anti-spam company Cloudmark announced the discovery of the first ever botnet, which consists of more than 800 Android-smartphones.

Infected devices used to send thousands of short messages containing spam. The age-old curse of personal computers and caught up with modern smartphones.

According to available data Cloudmark, identified botnet consists of ‘smart zombie’ who were infected when they replied to a spam email with a proposal to install free version of the popular mobile game, especially Need for Speed ​​Most Wanted. Together with a desired toy, downloaded from a server located in Hong Kong, users also get a virus that turns them into smartphones spambots.

A malicious program that icon which, of course, nowhere in the operating system does not display automatically sends spam to all phone numbers from the contact list of infected devices.