NFC is the new Typhoid Mary
Security experts demonstrated a few new ways of attacking Android phones at the Black Hat hacking conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday and they claim some attacks work on virtually all Android gear.
Accuvant researcher Charlie Miller showed off a method of delivering malicious code via NFC. Miller came up with a tiny device, the size of a postage stamp, which can be placed near a cash register to infect NFC devices used on the payment terminal.
"I can take over your phone," Miller told Reuters.
Miller and hacking expert Georg Wicherski also came up with an exploit which targets a security flaw in the Android browser. Google fixed the flaw in Chrome, but Wicherski pointed out that many users are still open to attack because carriers and phone makers aren’t pushing updates or patches to users.
"Google has added some great security features, but nobody has them,” said BeyodTrust CTO Marc Maiffret.
Two researchers also shower off a technique of evading Google’s ‘Bouncer’ technology for identifying malicious apps in the Play Store, using Java script bridge. The scrip bridge allows developers to remotely add new features while circumventing the normal Android update process.
They demonstrated the attack by loading malicious content on a phone, gaining control of the browser and downloading more code, which gave them total control of the phone.
More here.
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