Mar 16 2023

ZERO-DAY VULNERABILITIES IN EXYNOS CHIPSET ALLOW HACKING SAMSUNG, VIVO AND PIXEL PHONES

Category: Hacking,Mobile SecurityDISC @ 10:47 pm

The Exynos Modems manufactured by Samsung Semiconductor were found to have eighteen 0-day vulnerabilities, as revealed by Project Zero. Internet-to-baseband remote code execution was possible due to the four vulnerabilities that were deemed to be the most serious among these eighteen flaws (CVE-2023-24033 and three further vulnerabilities that have not yet been allocated CVE-IDs). Tests that were carried out by Project Zero have shown that the aforementioned four vulnerabilities make it possible for an attacker to remotely compromise a phone at the baseband level without any interaction from the user; all that is required is for the attacker to know the phone number of the victim. We anticipate that highly competent adversaries would be able to swiftly design an operational exploit to compromise impacted devices in a stealthy and remote manner if they were just given access to modest extra research and development resources.

The fourteen other similar vulnerabilities (CVE-2023-26072, CVE-2023-26073, CVE-2023-26074, CVE-2023-26075, CVE-2023-26076, and nine additional vulnerabilities that have yet to be granted CVE-IDs) were not as serious since they need either a hostile mobile network operator or an attacker with local access to the device.

The list of Exynos chipsets that are susceptible to these vulnerabilities may be found in the advisory published by Samsung Semiconductor. On the basis of information obtained from public sources that provide a mapping of chipsets to devices, the following devices are likely to be affected:

Devices from Samsung’s S22, M33, M13, M12, A71, A53, A33, A21, A13, A12, and A04 series;

Devices from Vivo’s S16, S15, S6, X70, X60, and X30 series

Devices from Google’s Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 series

Any wearables that use the Exynos W920 chipset and vehicles that use the Exynos Auto T5123 chipset.

Timelines for patches to address these vulnerabilities will differ depending on the manufacturer. Those who have devices that are vulnerable may protect themselves from baseband remote code execution vulnerabilities in the meanwhile by turning off Wi-Fi calling and Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) in the settings of their devices.

Due to the unusual combination of the level of access that these vulnerabilities provide and the speed at which they believe a reliable operational exploit could be crafted, the Google Security Team has decided to make an exception to their standard disclosure policy and delay the disclosure of the four most severe vulnerabilities. This decision was made because the Google Security Team believes that a reliable operational exploit could be crafted relatively quickly.

But, they will maintain their tradition of openness by publicly publishing disclosure policy exclusions, and after all of the concerns have been identified, they will add these problems to the list. Five of the remaining fourteen vulnerabilities (CVE-2023-24072, CVE-2023-24073, CVE-2023-24074, CVE-2023-24075, and CVE-2023-24076) have surpassed Project Zero’s regular 90-day limit and have been publicly revealed in their issue tracker. The other nine vulnerabilities will be publicly disclosed at that time if they are still unfixed.

End users are strongly urged by the Google Security Team to upgrade their devices as soon as is practically practicable in order to guarantee that they are using the most recent releases, which patch security flaws that have been made public as well as those that have not been made public. It is very vital to maintain vigilance and adopt the appropriate safety measures in order to safeguard one’s personal information and electrical devices from possible security risks.

Tags: samsung, VIVO, VIVO AND PIXEL PHONES


Jan 06 2009

Digital frames and malware threat

Category: MalwareDISC @ 6:30 pm

Digital photo frame
No doubt, the digital frame is a hot state of the art technology item today. Some digital frames in the market carry a risk of infection through a Trojan horse (malware) which is capable of monitoring keystrokes and sending useful information back to its originator. In Jan 2008 there were multiple reports that digital picture frames attempted to install malware on devices connected to the frame. It’s Jan 2009, and digital frames are still embedded with malwares.

According to SF chronicle article by Deborah Gage (Jan 2, 2009, pg. c1) “These popular devices are now so powerful that they’ve become computers in themselves, although people who buy them don’t always realize that. And like computers, the frames are capable of carrying code that logs keystrokes, steals data and calls out to other malicious code once it’s installed itself on a PC. “ “Users don’t realize that bad guys can make use of each and every computer they can control, even if you don’t do Internet banking or have any sensitive information,” said Karel Obluk, the chief technology officer of AVG, a security vendor with offices in the United States and Europe. “They can profit by spam or other illegal activities and make (your) PC part of an illegal network. It’s something that users should always be reminded of.”

Consumers have to be wary of devices which have memory on-board.

December 29, 2008 (Computerworld) Amazon.com Inc. last week warned customers running Windows XP that a Samsung digital photo frame it sold until earlier this month might have come with malware on the driver installation CD. Amazon’s advisory identified the malware as “W32.Sality.AE,” the name assigned by Symantec Corp.

According to Samsung’s alert, “a batch of Photo Frame Driver CDs contains a worm virus in the Frame Manager software. This is a risk of the customers host PCs being infected with this worm virus.”
The Samsung SPF-85H is no longer available on Amazon.com.

“Samsung has issued an alert. … Our records indicate that you have purchased one of the digital photo frames through the Amazon.com website and are therefore affected by this alert,” said Amazon in the note.

Based on various security advisories — Only users running Windows XP are at risk from this virus or a Trojan, Samsung and Amazon said; Windows Vista is immune.

Some considerations to safeguard against Trojans:

 Turn off autorun in Windows, to stop Trojan and malware exploits from installing itself on your system.
 To find a Trojan on your system, configure Windows to show hidden files.
 Utilize antivirus software which look for Trojans and keep it turned on and up-to-date. Scan new devices for malware upon connection to a system.
 Perform application vulnerability assessment on digital frame which will look for hidden Trojans.
 Perform regular assessment to find new vulnerabilities
 Buy photo frames manufactured by vendors who can guarantee exclusion of malwares.
 Do your due diligence to find out for known vulnerabilities before buying a digital frame

Who should be responsible for to make sure digital frames are malware free or perhaps both? (consumer/vendors)

AP Impact: Viruses Hit Digital Photo Frames, GPS
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R19VKUyeXag

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Tags: amazon, anti botnet, anti trojan, anti virus, anti worm, illegal network, infection, Malware, photo frame, samsung, Trojan horse