A recent discovery showed that many Android devices are at risk of allowing attackers to hack their device by accessing media files online. The attackers will then trick users into visiting maliciously-crafted Web pages. This comes from a flaw in the security system of Android OS, known as Stagefright.
By the beginning of this October, security experts have sent out a warning, stating 2 new Stagefright errors. With these new risks, hackers can get access to your device by mp3 and mp4 files that contain “poisonous codes”. With media files being available everywhere over the internet, it can’t be easier for hackers to harm your smartphones in just a blink. What is more terrible? The vulnerabilities can lead to remote code execution on almost all devices that run Android, from the first 1.0 version to the latest 5.1.1 OS. (Since Android 6.0 is not fully updated yet).
Researchers at Zimperium zLab have estimated that around 950 million Android users will be affected if this error is not solved quickly. Zuk Avraham founder of zLabs, even claimed that the potentially affected users can go up to 1,4 billion.
Even though no one says all Android devices will be affected, the chance for you to be is quite high with that estimated number. Taking advantage of the mentioned flaws, hackers can easily trick users into downloading the malicious code. “Just listening to a song or watching a video clip can bring trouble to your device” – Drake wrote on his blog to warn Android users.
In response to this wide-spreading matter, Google confirmed that they are working hard to launch the fixed patch for those Android OS, especially with their upcoming Nexus smartphones, set to out on October 5th. Other big smartphone producers like Samsung, LG, HTC, Motorola, Lenovo and Huawei also joined in fighting back with the incident, claimed they are working to provide the fixed version as soon as possible.
As this Stagefright malware is more dangerous and widespread than ever among Android devices, we hope Google make it quick this time and win back the trust from users. For we are now living in very competitive market, you users can always switch to another OS that offer them safer systems.