Is Your Phone At Risk? Google Raises Security Alarm For Android Users

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In a blogpost, Tim Willis, who is head of Google’s Project Zero, said four of the vulnerabilities ‘allows for Internet-to-baseband remote code execution”. These bugs have put the security of the android systems at risk.

Updated Mar 17, 2023 | 10:48 PM IST

The Google security researchers said skilled hackers would be able to quickly create an ‘operational exploit’ to compromise affected devices silently and remotely.

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Almost every second person is using an android phone nowadays. However, the android system is not averse to bugs and hacking. Raising a major alarm, the Google security researches have warned of 18 different bugs in Samsung Exynos chips which are utilised in many top Android smartphones.

How your phone is at risk

In a blogpost, Tim Willis , who is head of Google’s Project Zero , said four of the vulnerabilities ‘allows for Internet-to-baseband remote code execution”. These bugs have put the security of the android systems at risk.

According to tests conducted by the Project Zero lab, an attacker can remotely hack the phone at the baseband level without any user interaction thanks to these four bugs. The cyber hacker just needed to know the phone number of the victim to compromise its security.

The Google security researchers said skilled hackers would be able to quickly create an ‘operational exploit’ to compromise affected devices silently and remotely.

How Can Samsung phone users fend off cyber attacks

Google’s Project Zero head Tim Willis has said the phone users having Samsung’s Exynos chipsets in their devices can turn off Wi-Fi calling and Voice-over-LTE ( VoLTE ) in their phones to fend off cyber attacks until security updates are made available.

According to Willis, the chances of security compromise in the phones are nil when the settings are turned off.

The bug currently affects devices from Samsung, Google-Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 series, Vivo, wearables using Exynos chipset. The bugs also affects vehicles using Exynos Auto T5123 chipset.

Google said affected Pixel devices have already received updates, while other devices may get security updates as per manufacturer.

Google withheld disclosure of four vulnerabilities

According to Tim Willis, Under the…

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