This New QuadRooter Hack Affects 900+ million Android Devices

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900+ million Android devices are being affected by the new QuadRooter hack. A set of 4 security flaw in the Qualcomm chipsets which powers almost all the Android devices which is vulnerable to hackers. If anyone of them exploits, it will allow attackers to take that user’s handset and gain root access without his/her permission.

Qualcomm which is the world’s leading designer of LTE (Long Term Evolution) chipsets with a 65% share of the LTE modem baseband market. Hackers then simply have to trick people into downloading a malicious app to make all this possible.

The vulnerabilities have been disclosed by a team of Check Point researchers at the DEF CON 24 security conference in Las Vegas.

     Some Critical Quadrooter Vulnerabilities:

  • CVE-2016-2503 discovered in Qualcomm’s GPU driver and fixed in Google’s Android Security Bulletin for July 2016.
  • CVE-2016-2504 found in Qualcomm GPU driver and fixed in Google’s Android Security Bulletin for August 2016.
  • CVE-2016-2059 found in the Qualcomm kernel module and fixed in April, though patch status is unknown.
  • CVE-2016-5340 presented in Qualcomm GPU driver and fixed, but patch status unknown.

Checking If You Device Is Vulnerable To Hackers

By using Check Point’s free app you can check if your smartphone or tablet is vulnerable to Quadrooter attack. However, these flaws can only be fixed by installing a patch from the device’s distributors after receiving fixed driver packs from Qualcomm.

Here’s the list of some of the popular affected devices :

  • Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge
  • Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  • Google Nexus 5X, 6 and 6P
  • HTC One M9 and HTC 10
  • LG G4, G5, and V10
  • Motorola Moto X
  • OnePlus One, OnePlus Two and OnePlus Three
  • BlackBerry Priv
  • Blackphone 1 and 2

However the above list of devices is only some of the 900 million devices affected, there are other tons of devices affected by these flaws. Some vulnerabilities have already been fixed in Google’s latest set of security updates. A  patch for the remaining flaw will be rolled out in the next update. Better be careful and regularly update your devices.

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