Tag: Android

Categories
Links Writing

Google rebuilt a core part of Android to kill the Stagefright vulnerability for good

Google rebuilt a core part of Android to kill the Stagefright vulnerability for good:

Android’s security team patched the initial bug within weeks, but it inspired a wave of new attacks on the way Android processes audio and video files. The first copycat bugs were reported just days after the first patch, with more serious exploits arriving months later. The most recent Android patch report, released today, patches three separate vulnerabilities in Android’s media-processing function, including one critical flaw that could be used for remote code execution.

Now, Android is rebuilding that system from the ground up. When Android 7.0 Nougat began rolling out to phones last month, it came with a rebuilt media playback system, specifically designed to protect against the Stagefright family of attacks. In a post today, Android’s security team revealed new details on exactly how Nougat security has changed and what the team learned from last year’s string of bugs.

The vulnerability is more fully and truly patched! Hurray!

A shame that few users will ever receive an update to the new version of Android, let alone the patches in the previous (version 6) of Android. The best/easiest way for most users to ‘update’ an Android-based mobile phone is to throw their current phone in the trash and buy a new one…and even then, the phone they buy will likely lack recent patches. Heck, they’ll be lucky if it has the most recent operating system!

This stands directly in contrast to iOS. Apple can push out a global patch and there are remarkably high levels of uptake by end-users. Google’s method of working with handset manufacturers and carriers alike puts end-users are greater and greater risk. They’re simply making available dangerous products. They’re behaving worse than Microsoft in the Windows XP days!

Categories
Links

BlackBerry’s new round of lawsuits targets BLU—and Android

BlackBerry’s new round of lawsuits targets BLU—and Android:

The new lawsuits also suggest that BlackBerry has patents it believes describe Android features, so don’t be surprised if more Android phones are in the crosshairs soon. One of the two cases filed last week accuses user-interface features that are more about Android than they are about BLU. A small manufacturer like BLU could make for a good “test case” against a maker of Android phones.

Great. We’re back to the patent-suit wars that more or less wrapped up between mobile phone companies a few years back.

It’s going to be pretty amazing to watch Blackberry sue firms which have adopted the Android OS…just like Blackberry itself. I wonder if some other trolls will come out from their bridge and fire reciprocal suits against Blackberry.

Categories
Links Writing

BlackBerry DTEK50 Review: Secure, reasonably priced but light on battery life

BlackBerry DTEK50 Review: Secure, reasonably priced but light on battery life:

But the software on the DTEK50 is the same as the Priv’s – hardened Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow), FIPS 140-2 compliant full disk encryption, hardware root of trust, and BlackBerry Integrity Detection that monitors for compromises, with BlackBerry extras like the Hub (a unified inbox for all communications), calendar, contacts, password keeper, device search, launcher, and the DTEK security app for which the phone was named. Once you’ve used the BlackBerry software, most other offerings seem severely wanting. DTEK deserves special mention. It evaluates the device’s security posture, recommends changes, and allows you to see exactly what rights each app is using, and how often. You can also revoke individual privileges for an app if, for example, you see no reason why a flashlight app should have access to your contacts.

On what possible grounds can the reviewer – or the editor, who presumably assigned the title to this article – assert that the new Blackberry device is ‘secure’? We know that Blackberry’s consumer-grade options do not encrypt messaging data. We know that other implementations of Android, such as CopperheadOS, actually contribute code to the Android Open Source Project that is meant to reduce vulnerabilities.

We also know that Blackberry refuses to disclose how often they receive, and respond to, government requests for assistance. And we don’t know which countries Blackberry provides assistance to, under what specific terms, or the types of data that the company discloses. But all of this speaks to Blackberry being able to access consumers’ data…which is the definition of a service being insecure insofar as non-authorized actors can read or copy the data in question.

Before journalists or editors make assertions regarding security of mobile devices (or any other product for that matter) they should be obligated to contact experts in the field of mobile security. And preferably they’d actually contact people who actively test the security of mobile devices. Or, you know, at the very least they’d read the news and realize that the security afforded by Blackberry to its retail customers if more like propoganda than based in reality.

Categories
Links

Linux bug leaves 1.4 billion Android users vulnerable to hijacking attacks

Linux bug leaves 1.4 billion Android users vulnerable to hijacking attacks:

“The tl;dr is for Android users to ensure they are encrypting their communications by using VPNs, [or] ensuring the sites they go to are encrypted,” Lookout researcher Andrew Blaich told Ars. “If there’s somewhere they’re going to that they don’t want tracked, always ensure they’re encrypted.”

The vulnerability makes it possible for anyone with an Internet connection to determine whether any two parties are communicating over a long-lived transport control protocol connection, such as those that serve Web mail, news feeds, or direct messages. In the event the connections aren’t encrypted, attackers can then inject malicious code or content into the traffic. Even when the connection is encrypted, the attacker may still be able to determine a channel exists and terminate it. The vulnerability is classified as CVE-2016-5696.

One of the more likely ways exploits might target Android users is for them to insert JavaScript into otherwise legitimate Internet traffic that isn’t protected by the HTTPS cryptographic scheme. The JavaScript could display a message that falsely claims the user has been logged out of her account and instruct her to re-enter her user name and password. The login credentials would then be sent to the attacker. Similar injection attacks might also attempt to exploit unpatched vulnerabilities in the browser or e-mail or chat app the targeted Android user is using.

Another day, and another massive vulnerability disclosed about Android.

Categories
Links

Waiting for Android’s inevitable security Armageddon

Waiting for Android’s inevitable security Armageddon:

Android has around 75-80 percent of the worldwide smartphone market—making it not just the world’s most popular mobile operating system but arguably the most popular operating system, period. As such, security has become a big issue. Android still uses a software update chain-of-command designed back when the Android ecosystem had zero devices to update, and it just doesn’t work. There are just too many cooks in the kitchen: Google releases Android to OEMs, OEMs can change things and release code to carriers, carriers can change things and release code to consumers. It’s been broken for years.

This editorial was written over a year ago. And it’s as true, today, as it was the day it was written. Imagine if car companies just kept releasing the same dangerous, flawed, and fixable devices despite rampant car crashes, accidents, and other mishaps.

That’s Google today, as it continues to push flawed versions of Andrew, and today’s OEMs (e.g. Samsung, HTC) and carriers (e.g. Rogers, AT&T, Vodafone). The insecurity of Android constitutes a basic safety and human rights issue at this point given how states exploit Android vulnerabilities to target dissidents, journalists, academics, writers, and the public more generally. And yet none of the core parties reponsible for these major security failures are making genuine efforts to actually fix the problem because they don’t think they have to care.

Categories
Links

Copperhead OS: The startup that wants to solve Android’s woeful security

Copperhead OS: The startup that wants to solve Android’s woeful security:

Linux device drivers have been the operating system’s Achilles heel since day one, and the Android platform is no exception. Android phones ship with kernels frozen to ensure driver compatibility—which usually means that a new Android device comes with a kernel that’s already a year or two old.

“It’s like if you have a printer and the last printer driver made was for Windows 95, you can never upgrade your computer to a newer version,” Soghoian explains. “Android is bigger than just Google, and when Google’s partners drag their feet it undermines the security of the entire ecosystem.”

As an Android device ages, the kernel may get backported security patches, depending on the OEM’s willingness to push updates, but the handset will miss out on the latest security advances, since upgrading the kernel would break hardware compatibility with the drivers.

There are a lot of great things about Android. Device and data security just aren’t amongst them.

Categories
Links

Major Qualcomm chip security flaws expose 900M Android users

Major Qualcomm chip security flaws expose 900M Android users:

Qualcomm makes chips for the majority of the world’s phones, holding a 65 percent share of the market. Most of the major recent Android devices are expected to be affected by the flaw, including:

  • BlackBerry Priv
  • Blackphone 1 and Blackphone 2
  • Google Nexus 5X, Nexus 6, and Nexus 6P
  • HTC One, HTC M9, and HTC 10
  • LG G4, LG G5, and LG V10
  • New Moto X by Motorola
  • OnePlus One, OnePlus 2, and OnePlus 3
  • Samsung Galaxy S7 and Samsung S7 Edge
  • Sony Xperia Z Ultra

Three of the four holes have already been patched, with a solution for the fourth on the way. However, most users are at the mercy of their handset manufacturers if they want these patches applied. Owners of Google’s Nexus devices have already had patches pushed to their phones, but other manufacturers have historically been less interested in patching flaws found in their devices after release.

In many cases these updates will never be released, leaving people permanently vulnerable to this very, very, very serious vulnerability. But hey: at least it only affects around 12-13% of the world’s population. Maybe phone manufacturers and cellular carriers will actually promptly act to protect their users when closer to 20-35% of the world population is affected by the next Android vulnerability…

Categories
Links Writing

New York DA Wants Apple, Google to Roll Back Encryption

New York DA Wants Apple, Google to Roll Back Encryption:

[Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.] said that law enforcement officials did not need an encryption “backdoor,” sidestepping a concern of computer-security experts and device makers alike.

Instead, Vance said, he only wanted the encryption standards rolled back to the point where the companies themselves can decrypt devices, but police cannot. This situation existed until September 2014, when Apple pushed out iOS 8, which Apple itself cannot decrypt.

“Tim Cook was absolutely right when he told his shareholders that the iPhone changed the world,” Vance said. “It’s changed my world. It’s letting criminals conduct their business with the knowledge we can’t listen to them.”

Vance cited a recording of a telephone call made from New York City’s Riker’s Island jail to an outside line. In the call, a defendant in a sex-crimes case tells a friend about the miraculous powers of the new smartphone operating systems.

“Apple and Google came out with these softwares that can no longer by encrypted by the police,” the defendant allegedly said, mixing up encryption with decryption. “If our phones [are] running on iOS 8 software, they can’t open my phone. That might be another gift from God.”

Correct me if I’m wrong but if you’re able to quote the conversation they had about the encryption of the device, then isn’t it the case that law enforcement can, in fact, listen in to at least some of these supposedly sophisticated criminals? Regardless of their adoption of consumer-grade (i.e. incredibly common) tools and security protocols?

But more to the point: it has never been the case that government agencies have been able to compel, or access, all of the information they might find useful in the course of their investigations. That’s normal. Government agencies enjoyed incredible access to persons’ information for the course of a decade or so, as technology companies matured into firms that took the security and privacy of their customers seriously. Asking for the industry to return to a less-mature state is bad for everyone.

Finally: while domestic agencies might be worried about the situations where they cannot access the data at rest on the device, you can be sure that governmental staff who are abroad are very happy that they can use their devices with the knowledge that even foreign state actors will be challenged in accessing the data at rest which is stored on their smartphones. American (and Canadian) law enforcement agencies are understandably pushing for greater access to information but, by the same token, their success would mean that their compatriots in China, Brazil, France, Israel, and other friendly and unfriendly states would be able to lawfully gain entry to foreign agents’ devices. I’m pretty sure that diplomatic staff and military personel abroad are pleased that such an attack vector has been narrowed by Apple’s actions.

Categories
Links

Security researcher uncovers high-risk BIOS vulnerability in Lenovo PCs

According to researcher Dmytro Oleksiuk aka Cr4sh, the erroneous code exploits the 0day privileges escalation vulnerability in Lenovo’s BIOS. This bug allows users to exploit the flash write protection, disabling of UEFI Secure Boot, Virtual Secure Mode and Credential Guard on most Windows Enterprise powered Lenovo PCs. And this is just a small list of possible evil things that can be executed using this vulnerability.

Another serious vulnerability. I wonder: how many of the vulnerable BIOSes will actually be updated versus those that will remain permanently vulnerable to this kind of attack? And doesn’t the persistence of new vulnerabilities speak the failure of manufacturers to secure end point devices, thus obviating some government concerns surrounding the encryption of communications?

Categories
Links

Android’s full-disk encryption just got much weaker—here’s why

But researchers from two-factor authentication service Duo Security told Ars that an estimated 37 percent of all the Android phones that use the Duo app remain susceptible to the attack because they have yet to receive the patches. The lack of updates is the result of restrictions imposed by manufacturers or carriers that prevent end users from installing updates released by Google.

Yikes.

Beyond hacks, Beniamini said the design makes it possible for phone manufacturers to assist law enforcement agencies in unlocking an encrypted device. Since the key is available to TrustZone, the hardware makers can simply create and sign a TrustZone image that extracts what are known as the keymaster keys. Those keys can then be flashed to the target device.

And double yikes: do we now need to get phone manufacturers to release transparency reports that indicate whether they’ve compromised devices after receiving requests to do so from law enforcement agencies?