Tag Archives: Android

Your Android devices can be hacked with a MMS

Own an Android phone? Be careful, Your Android devices can be hacked with a MMS.

Security researchers have found that 95% of Android devices running version 2.2 to 5.1 of operating system, which includes Lollipop and KitKat, are susceptible to the security bug, affecting more than 950 million Android smartphones and tablets.

Almost all Android smart devices available today are open to attack that could allow hackers to access the vulnerable device without the owners being aware of it, according to Joshua Drake, vice president of platform research and exploitation at security firm Zimperium.

The vulnerability actually resides in a core Android component called “Stagefright,” a multimedia playback library used by Android to process, record and play multimedia files such as PDFs.

A Text Message Received…Your Game is Over

The sad news for most of the Android users is that the fix will not help millions of Android users that owned older versions of the operating system that Google no longer supports, opening doors for hackers to perform Stagefright attack.

Drake has developed and published a scary discovery that uses a specially crafted text message using the multimedia message (MMS) format.

All a hacker needs is the phone number of the victim’s Android device. The hacker could then sends the malicious message that will secretly execute malicious code on the vulnerable device with no end user action, no indication, nothing require

Stagefright: Scary Code in the Heart of Android

The same vulnerability can also be exploited using other attack techniques, such as luring victims to malicious websites.

Drake will present his full findings, including six additional attack techniques to exploit the vulnerability, at Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas on August 5 and DEF CON 23 on August 7, where he is scheduled to deliver a talk titled, Stagefright: Scary Code in the Heart of Android.

Almost all Android devices containing Stagefright are in question. According to Drake, all versions of Android devices after and including version 2.2 of the operating system are potentially vulnerable, and it is up to each device manufacturer to patch the devices against Stagefright attack.

When will I expect a Fix?

Google has patched the code and sent it to device manufacturers, but devices require over-the-air updates from companies such as Samsung or Motorola to update their customers’ phones.

Given the shaky history of handset manufacturers and carriers rolling out security patches, it is not known how long the companies will take to update vulnerable Android devices against Stagefright attack.

virus_androidHowever, Silent Circle has patched the issue in its Blackphone, as has Mozilla, which uses Stagefright code in Firefox OS.

Microsoft Office apps finally free for Android

Don’t own an iPhone or Windows Phone, but rely on Microsoft’s Office for writing, building presentations and crunching numbers? No problem.

Microsoft’s esteemed suite of applications, including Word, PowerPoint and Excel, has finally made its way onto smartphones powered by Google’s Android mobile operating system.

Best of all, the apps, like their counterparts on Android tablets and devices running Apple’s iOS operating system, are free to download.

Microsoft first made its Office suite available for Android tablets in February 2015 and announced a preview of the smartphone versions in May. The apps look and work much like the software designed for Apple’s iPads and iPhones, meaning you can edit Word documents and wirelessly run PowerPoint presentations from your phone. Unlocking more mobile features and using the software’s desktop versions requires an annual subscription to Office 365.

The world’s largest software maker hopes people will pay the fee for Office 365 so they can use the cloud versions of Outlook, Word and PowerPoint on their Macs or PCs. That’s become especially attractive as employees shift activities between their corporate and personal devices.

The goal of these apps is to make sure that as people think about working, creating and doing, they think of Office as the default according to Microsoft’s project manager. This is the culmination of a nearly 18-month journey since Microsoft first offered Office for iPad transforming Office from a software suite into a platform that would work across devices.

The Microsoft team want corporate customers to stop thinking of Office and Windows software as products they buy with onetime licenses. The company is following the lead of others in the industry, such as Adobe Systems, Oracle and Salesforce.com, which are pushing customers to pay annual subscriptions for applications, storage and other services in the cloud.

Microsoft’s cloud business currently accounts for $6.3 billion a year, or about 5 percent of total revenue. They hope the business will deliver about $20 billion in sales by 2018.

office_android

The mobile versions of Office for both iOS and Android have been downloaded more than 100 million times since June of 2013. To up that number, the company is partnering with more than 30 device makers, including Samsung, Dell and LG to preinstall Office and its Skype video-calling software on Android devices.