Sharing eBook With Your Kindle Could Have Let Hackers Hijack Your Account
Jan 22, 2021
Amazon has addressed a number of flaws in its Kindle e-reader platform that could have allowed an attacker to take control of victims' devices by simply sending them a malicious e-book. Dubbed " KindleDrip ," the exploit chain takes advantage of a feature called " Send to Kindle " to send a malware-laced document to a Kindle device that, when opened, could be leveraged to remotely execute arbitrary code on the device and make unauthorized purchases. "The code runs as root, and the attacker only needs to know the email address assigned to the victim's device," said Yogev Bar-On, a security researcher for Readlmode Labs, in a technical write-up on Thursday. The first vulnerability lets a bad actor send an e-book to a Kindle, the second flaw allows for remote code execution while the e-book is parsed, and a third issue makes it possible to escalate privileges and run the code as the "root" user. When linked together, these weaknesses...