Bad news for Android users -- the 'worst Android vulnerability in the mobile OS history' is back.
This is the third time the malicious malware, Stagefright, also referred to as Metaphor, has emerged and has the potential to infect one billion handsets allowing cybercriminals to hack an Android smartphone in less than 10 seconds, according to tech experts.
According to a March 19 Engadget article:
“The key is a back-and-forth procedure that gauges a device’s defenses before diving in. Visit a website with a maliciously-designed MPEG-4 video and the attack will crash Android’s media server, send hardware data back to the attacker, send another video file, collect additional security data and deliver one last video file that actually infects the device. It sounds laborious, but it works quickly: a typical attack breaks into a phone within 20 seconds.”
The hacker will be able to gain access to data on the phone and control key operations. According to Engadget, devices like the Nexus 5, LG G3, and even the Samsung Galaxy 5 are possible victims of this hack.
Android users who run Android 6.0 Marshmallow or any other OS version that have Stagefright patches built in shouldn't worry. The phones most at risk are versions of Android phones with older operating systems.
“Android devices with a security patch level of October 1, 2015 or greater are protected because of a fix we released for this issue (CVE-2015-3864) last year. As always, we appreciate the security community’s research efforts as they help further secure the Android ecosystem for everyone,” Google said in a statement to Forbes.
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