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Category — man-in-the-disk attack
Flaws in Samsung Phones Exposed Android Users to Remote Attacks

Flaws in Samsung Phones Exposed Android Users to Remote Attacks

Aug 12, 2020
New research disclosed a string of severe security vulnerabilities in the ' Find My Mobile '—an Android app that comes pre-installed on most Samsung smartphones—that could have allowed remote attackers to track victims' real-time location, monitor phone calls, and messages, and even delete data stored on the phone. Portugal-based cybersecurity services provider Char49 revealed its findings on Samsung's Find My Mobile Android app at the DEF CON conference last week and shared details with the Hacker News. "This flaw, after setup, can be easily exploited and with severe implications for the user and with a potentially catastrophic impact: permanent denial of service via phone lock, complete data loss with factory reset (SD card included), serious privacy implication via IMEI and location tracking as well as call and SMS log access," Char49's Pedro Umbelino said in technical analysis. The flaws, which work on unpatched Samsung Galaxy S7, S8, and S9+...
Google Advises Android Developers to Encrypt App Data On Device

Google Advises Android Developers to Encrypt App Data On Device

Feb 26, 2020
Google today published a blog post recommending mobile app developers to encrypt data that their apps generate on the users' devices, especially when they use unprotected external storage that's prone to hijacking. Moreover, considering that there are not many reference frameworks available for the same, Google also advised using an easy-to-implement security library available as part of its Jetpack software suite. The open-sourced Jetpack Security (aka JetSec) library lets Android app developers easily read and write encrypted files by following best security practices , including storing cryptographic keys and protecting files that may contain sensitive data, API keys, OAuth tokens. To give a bit of context, Android offers developers two different ways to save app data. The first one is app-specific storage, also known as internal storage, where the files are stored in a sandboxed folder meant for a specific app's use and inaccessible to other apps on the same...
Cyber Story Time: The Boy Who Cried "Secure!"

Cyber Story Time: The Boy Who Cried "Secure!"

Nov 21, 2024Threat Detection / Pentesting
As a relatively new security category, many security operators and executives I've met have asked us "What are these Automated Security Validation (ASV) tools?" We've covered that pretty extensively in the past, so today, instead of covering the " What is ASV?" I wanted to address the " Why ASV?" question. In this article, we'll cover some common use cases and misconceptions of how people misuse and misunderstand ASV tools daily (because that's a lot more fun). To kick things off, there's no place to start like the beginning. Automated security validation tools are designed to provide continuous, real-time assessment of an organization's cybersecurity defenses. These tools are continuous and use exploitation to validate defenses like EDR, NDR, and WAFs. They're more in-depth than vulnerability scanners because they use tactics and techniques that you'll see in manual penetration tests. Vulnerability scanners won't relay hashes or combine vulnerabilities to further attacks, whic
New Malware Replaced Legit Android Apps With Fake Ones On 25 Million Devices

New Malware Replaced Legit Android Apps With Fake Ones On 25 Million Devices

Jul 11, 2019
Are you sure the WhatsApp app you are using on your Android device is legitimate, even if it's working perfectly as intended? ...Or the JioTV, AppLock, HotStar, Flipkart, Opera Mini or Truecaller app—if you have installed any of these? I'm asking this because cybersecurity researchers just yesterday revealed eye-opening details about a widespread Android malware campaign wherein attackers silently replaced installed legitimate apps with their malicious versions on nearly 25 million mobile phones. Now the important question here is how they're doing it and why? According to researchers at Check Point, attackers are distributing a new kind of Android malware that disguises itself as innocent-looking photo editing, adult entertainment, or gaming apps and available through widely used third-party app stores. Dubbed Agent Smith , the malware takes advantage of multiple Android vulnerabilities, such as the  Janus flaw and the Man-in-the-Disk flaw , and injects malic...
cyber security

Creating, Managing and Securing Non-Human Identities

websitePermisoCybersecurity / Identity Security
A new class of identities has emerged alongside traditional human users: non-human identities (NHIs). Permiso Security's new eBook details everything you need to know about managing and securing non-human identities, and strategies to unify identity security without compromising agility.
Critical Flaw in Fortnite Android App Lets Hackers Install Malware

Critical Flaw in Fortnite Android App Lets Hackers Install Malware

Aug 27, 2018
Security researchers from Google have publicly disclosed an extremely serious security flaw in the first Fortnite installer for Android that could allow other apps installed on the targeted devices to manipulate installation process and load malware, instead of the Fortnite APK. Earlier this month, Epic Games announced not to make its insanely popular game ' Fortnite for Android ' available through the Google Play Store, but via its own app. Many researchers warned the company that this approach could potentially put Android users at a greater risk, as downloading APKs outside of the Play Store is not recommended and requires users to disable some security features on Android devices as well. And it seems like those fears and concerns were true. Google developers discovered a dangerous security flaw as soon as the Fortnite game launched on Android. Fortnite Android Installer Vulnerable to Man-in-the-Disk Attack In a proof-of-concept video published by Google, r...
New Man-in-the-Disk attack leaves millions of Android phones vulnerable

New Man-in-the-Disk attack leaves millions of Android phones vulnerable

Aug 14, 2018
Security researchers at Check Point Software Technologies have discovered a new attack vector against the Android operating system that could potentially allow attackers to silently infect your smartphones with malicious apps or launch denial of service attacks. Dubbed Man-in-the-Disk , the attack takes advantage of the way Android apps utilize 'External Storage' system to store app-related data, which if tampered could result in code injection in the privileged context of the targeted application. It should be noted that apps on the Android operating system can store its resources on the device in two locations—internal storage and external storage. Google itself offers guidelines to Android application developers urging them to use internal storage, which is an isolated space allocated to each application protected using Android's built-in sandbox, to store their sensitive files or data. However, researchers found that many popular apps—including Google Translate ...
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