Google Pixel | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A large percentage of Google's own Pixel devices shipped globally since September 2017 included dormant software that could be used to stage nefarious attacks and deliver various kinds of malware. The issue manifests in the form of a pre-installed Android app called "Showcase.apk" that comes with excessive system privileges, including the ability to remotely execute code and install arbitrary packages on the device, according to mobile security firm iVerify. "The application downloads a configuration file over an unsecure connection and can be manipulated to execute code at the system level," it said in an analysis published jointly with Palantir Technologies and Trail of Bits. "The application retrieves the configuration file from a single U.S.-based, AWS-hosted domain over unsecured HTTP, which leaves the configuration vulnerable and can make the device vulnerable." The app in question is called Verizon Retail Demo Mode ("com.customermob...

Google has warned that a security flaw impacting Pixel Firmware has been exploited in the wild as a zero-day. The high-severity vulnerability, tagged as CVE-2024-32896 , has been described as an elevation of privilege issue in Pixel Firmware. The company did not share any additional details related to the nature of attacks exploiting it, but noted "there are indications that CVE-2024-32896 may be under limited, targeted exploitation." The June 2024 security update addresses a total of 50 security vulnerabilities, five of which relate to various components in Qualcomm chipsets. Some of the notable issues patched include denial-of-service (DoS) issue impacting Modem, and numerous information disclosure flaws affecting GsmSs, ACPM, and Trusty.  The updates are available for supported Pixel devices , such as Pixel 5a with 5G, Pixel 6a, Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 7a, Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro, Pixel 8a, and Pixel Fold. Earlier this April, Google resolved...

Google has disclosed that two Android security flaws impacting its Pixel smartphones have been exploited in the wild by forensic companies. The high-severity zero-day vulnerabilities are as follows - CVE-2024-29745  - An information disclosure flaw in the bootloader component CVE-2024-29748  - A privilege escalation flaw in the firmware component "There are indications that the [vulnerabilities] may be under limited, targeted exploitation," Google  said  in an advisory published April 2, 2024. While the tech giant did not reveal any other information about the nature of the attacks exploiting these shortcomings, the maintainers of GrapheneOS said they "are being actively exploited in the wild by forensic companies." "CVE-2024-29745 refers to a vulnerability in the fastboot firmware used to support unlocking/flashing/locking," they  said  in a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter). "Forensic companies are rebooting devices in After First U...

Not every security vulnerability is high risk on its own - but in the hands of an advanced attacker, even small weaknesses can escalate into major breaches. These five real vulnerabilities, uncovered by Intruder's bug-hunting team, reveal how attackers turn overlooked flaws into serious security incidents. 1. Stealing AWS Credentials with a Redirect Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) is a common vulnerability that can have a significant impact, especially in cloud-hosted applications. If a web application fetches resources from user-supplied URLs, care should be taken to ensure attackers can't manipulate requests to access unintended resources. While assessing a home-moving app running in AWS, our team tested common SSRF bypass techniques. The attack chain was as follows: the app sent a webhook request to the attacker's web server, which responded with a 302 redirect to AWS's metadata service. The app followed the redirect and logged the response, which exposed sensitive metadat...

Google has resolved a high-severity security issue affecting all Pixel smartphones that could be trivially exploited to unlock the devices. The vulnerability, tracked as  CVE-2022-20465  and reported by security researcher David Schütz in June 2022, was remediated as part of the search giant's  monthly Android update  for November 2022. "The issue allowed an attacker with physical access to bypass the lock screen protections (fingerprint, PIN, etc.) and gain complete access to the user's device," Schütz, who was awarded $70,000 for the lock screen bypass,  said  in a write-up of the flaw. The problem, per the researcher, is rooted in the fact that lock screen protections are completely defeated when following a specific sequence of steps - Supply incorrect fingerprint three times to disable biometric authentication on the locked device Hot swap  the SIM card in the device with an attacker-controlled SIM that has a PIN code set up Enter incorre...