Google finds serious flaws in Android code Samsung added to Galaxy S6 Edge

Posted:
in iPhone edited November 2015
Google's bug hunt to identify software flaws in Android has revealed 11 exploitable flaws in Samsung's software included on its high end Galaxy S6 Edge flagship, including "a substantial number of high-severity issues," within just a week of looking.




Google is facing even greater challenges to secure Android than Microsoft faced in its battles to contain viruses and security exploits for Windows XP in the early 2000s, because Google has less control over the products that ship with Android branding.

As Google's Project Zero team itself noted, Android's licensees "are an important area for Android security research, as they introduce additional (and possibly vulnerable) code into Android devices at all privilege levels, and they decide the frequency of the security updates that they provide for their devices to carriers."

Within the course of a week, teams at Google challenged the "security boundaries of Android that are typically attacked," with an aim to see if they could gain remote access to users' contacts, photos and messages, ideally without any user interaction; exploit the Android phone via an app installed from Google Play that did not require the granting of any permissions by the user; and install an attack on the device that could survive a factory wipe, maintaining a security infection.

The teams discovered a Samsung process that runs with system privileges, which unpacks ZIP file downloads from a given URL. "Unfortunately," Google noted, "the API used to unzip the file does not verify the file path, so it can be written in unexpected locations." [...] "this was trivially exploitable using the Dalvik cache using a technique that has been used to exploit other directory traversal bugs."

Another bug, in Samsung's email code, failed to authenticate when handling Android intents, an OS-level feature that lets apps pass commands between themselves. Without authenticating, Samsung's email software allowed an unprivileged app to hijack emails and forward them to other account.

Google noted that the mistake opened up "easy access to data that not even a privileged app should be able to access," further highlighting how little control Google has over Android in the hands of its licensees.

Google also found that buffer overflow flaws in three Samsung drivers "could be used by bugs in media processing, such as libStageFright bugs, to escalate to kernel privileges."

Five exploitable flaws were also found in Samsung's image processing code, two of which could allow privilege escalation when a rogue image file is opened in Samsung's Gallery app, while the other three could be triggered simply by downloading an image. "It was also surprising that we found the three logic issues that are trivial to exploit. These types of issues are especially concerning, as the time to find, exploit and use the issue is very short" - Google

Google expressed surprise at how quickly it could find these exploits, adding that "it was also surprising that we found the three logic issues that are trivial to exploit. These types of issues are especially concerning, as the time to find, exploit and use the issue is very short."

Google noted that Samsung's use of SELinux "made it more difficult to investigate certain bugs, and to determine the device attack surface," but that it also "found three bugs that would allow an exploit to disable SELinux, so it's not an effective mitigation against every bug."

Samsung a leader in Android security, bugs

Samsung and Google have worked to patch the most serious bugs found, but the findings of just one week of bug hunting highlight the difficulty in securing even the most expensive models of Android phones on sale from its largest licensee, one that has a committed interest in wooing government and enterprise buyers with its self-signed seal of approval brand of "SAFE" or "Samsung for Enterprise."




Android's security problems have compounded since 2011, when researchers from North Carolina State University demonstrated that Android's permission-based security system could be easily circumvented due to flaws in the software that licensees--including HTC, Samsung, Motorola and even Google's Nexus-branded phones--were adding to their devices.

After reporting issues to Android vendors, the group noted that "we experienced major difficulties with HTC and Samsung," adding that they "have been really slow in responding to, if not ignoring, our reports/inquiries."

The blind patching the blind

Flaws in Google's own Android code are also a serious issue, complicated by the fact that few users are able to update their devices to a recent version of Android. Currently, three-quarters of Android devices on Google Play are running a version older than last year's Android 5.0 Lollipop.

In the summer of 2014, Google's chief executive Sundar Pichai introduced Android 5 with contributions from Samsung's Knox security software (that makes up the foundation of its SAFE initiative) ostensibly working to secure the platform.

A year later, Google has launched another new version of Android before seeing even a quarter of its installed base adopt last year's Android 5, making it somewhat ironic that the newest Android software has already been undermined by flaws in code added by Samsung itself.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 58
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,851member
    Just wow ...
  • Reply 2 of 58
    What's today's word? "Schadenfreude"
  • Reply 3 of 58
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by thevofl View Post



    What's today's word? "Schadenfreude"

     

    Or as Phil Schiller would say: Shenanigans. Oh wait, that was for Samsung benchmark cheating.

  • Reply 4 of 58
    pistispistis Posts: 247member
    zzzzzzzz, someone wake me up
  • Reply 5 of 58
    irnchrizirnchriz Posts: 1,617member
    the author forgot to mention:

    Conclusion

    A week of investigation showed that there are a number of weak points in the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. Over the course of a week, we found a total of 11 issues with a serious security impact. Several issues were found in device drivers and image processing, and there were also some logic issues in the device that were high impact and easy-to-exploit.

    The majority of these issues were fixed on the device we tested via an OTA update within 90 days, though three lower-severity issues remain unfixed. It is promising that the highest severity issues were fixed and updated on-device in a reasonable time frame.

    I'm all for android bashing as I am not a fan of it whatsoever but don't sink to this level. iOS and OS X have had security issues before which took Apple a while to patch also, how do you think they jailbreak iPhones? Security holes..
  • Reply 6 of 58
    igorskyigorsky Posts: 776member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by irnchriz View Post



    Conclusion



    A week of investigation showed that there are a number of weak points in the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. Over the course of a week, we found a total of 11 issues with a serious security impact. Several issues were found in device drivers and image processing, and there were also some logic issues in the device that were high impact and easy-to-exploit.



    The majority of these issues were fixed on the device we tested via an OTA update within 90 days, though three lower-severity issues remain unfixed. It is promising that the highest severity issues were fixed and updated on-device in a reasonable time frame.



    I'm all for android bashing as I am not a fan of it whatsoever but don't sink to this level. iOS and OS X have had security issues before which took Apple a while to patch also, how do you think they jailbreak iPhones? Security holes..

     

    One day someone will have to explain this phenomenon of certain iPhone users defending Samsung after the years of glee with which Samsung attempted to make iPhone users look like idiots.  Boggles the mind, really.

  • Reply 7 of 58
    irnchrizirnchriz Posts: 1,617member
    igorsky wrote: »
    Wait...so you didn't get a hardon from this article?  I sure did.

    One day someone will have to explain this phenomenon of iPhone users defending Samsung after the years glee with which they attempted to make iPhone users look like idiots.  Boggles the mind, really.

    I'm not defending Samsung I just don't agree with the zealotry shown in DEDs posts. his articles are borderline hatespeech and I would prefer he not lower himself to the gutter along with the typical Apple haters.
  • Reply 8 of 58
    sergiozsergioz Posts: 338member
    thevofl wrote: »
    What's today's word? "Schadenfreude"

    Very well put!
  • Reply 9 of 58
    sergiozsergioz Posts: 338member
    irnchriz wrote: »
    OMG I can just imagine the glee in finding this out and having such a hardon to get this article out that he forgot to mention:

    Conclusion

    A week of investigation showed that there are a number of weak points in the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. Over the course of a week, we found a total of 11 issues with a serious security impact. Several issues were found in device drivers and image processing, and there were also some logic issues in the device that were high impact and easy-to-exploit.

    The majority of these issues were fixed on the device we tested via an OTA update within 90 days, though three lower-severity issues remain unfixed. It is promising that the highest severity issues were fixed and updated on-device in a reasonable time frame.

    I'm all for android bashing as I am not a fan of it whatsoever but don't sink to the level of an fanboy. iOS and OS X have had security issues before which took Apple a while to patch also, how do you think they jailbreak iPhones? Security holes..

    As easy as a click of a mouse!
  • Reply 10 of 58
    netmagenetmage Posts: 314member
    Except most jailbreak exploits require tethering to a PC, and those that don't have been fixed quickly in recent ios. These are remotely/Play Store exploitable bugs.
  • Reply 11 of 58
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,136member

    Shitty software further modded by a shitty company.  Not much else to say.



    I remember an article not too long ago about Samsung's internet-connected kitchen appliances that all had serious security flaws in them as well.  Samsung has zero business being in the software business.  They couldn't code their way out of a Hello-World program.

  • Reply 12 of 58
    pistis wrote: »
    zzzzzzzz, someone wake me up

    Wake up!
  • Reply 13 of 58
    I have to agree this is a very biased article to flame android without providing the full story, must be a slow news day at Apple.
  • Reply 14 of 58
    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger Posts: 1,584member
    irnchriz wrote: »
    the author forgot to mention:

    Conclusion

    A week of investigation showed that there are a number of weak points in the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. Over the course of a week, we found a total of 11 issues with a serious security impact. Several issues were found in device drivers and image processing, and there were also some logic issues in the device that were high impact and easy-to-exploit.

    The majority of these issues were fixed on the device we tested via an OTA update within 90 days, though three lower-severity issues remain unfixed. It is promising that the highest severity issues were fixed and updated on-device in a reasonable time frame.

    I'm all for android bashing as I am not a fan of it whatsoever but don't sink to this level. iOS and OS X have had security issues before which took Apple a while to patch also, how do you think they jailbreak iPhones? Security holes..

    False. Nothing was "forgotten" or omitted: "Samsung and Google have worked to patch the most serious bugs found"

    Reality remains.
  • Reply 15 of 58
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    What whole story, that there have been transient specific issues in the past with ios? Are you going that this is somehow equal ti the pervasive broken mostly unfixable slog of crap security on android

    That's like saying a 50 to 5 nfl score means the same thing to the loser as 30 to 27 loss.
    Android security is so bad they can only hope they only get bitchslapped
  • Reply 16 of 58
    eriamjheriamjh Posts: 1,766member

    Well, at least they can sell the phones in England.

  • Reply 17 of 58
    bheitbheit Posts: 15member
    What? Samsung and Google lying, cheating and stealing? Now there's a first!
  • Reply 18 of 58
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by irnchriz View Post



    the author forgot to mention:



    Conclusion



    A week of investigation showed that there are a number of weak points in the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. Over the course of a week, we found a total of 11 issues with a serious security impact. Several issues were found in device drivers and image processing, and there were also some logic issues in the device that were high impact and easy-to-exploit.



    The majority of these issues were fixed on the device we tested via an OTA update within 90 days, though three lower-severity issues remain unfixed. It is promising that the highest severity issues were fixed and updated on-device in a reasonable time frame.



    I'm all for android bashing as I am not a fan of it whatsoever but don't sink to this level. iOS and OS X have had security issues before which took Apple a while to patch also, how do you think they jailbreak iPhones? Security holes..Quite ironic timing given the other article today about the purported iOS 9 and OSX zero-day exploits.


  • Reply 19 of 58
    solipsismysolipsismy Posts: 5,099member
    igorsky wrote: »
    One day someone will have to explain this phenomenon of certain iPhone users defending Samsung after the years of glee with which Samsung attempted to make iPhone users look like idiots.  Boggles the mind, really.

    Being fair and reasonable is mind boggling? :\ Why should he ignore facts and act like the very people you say attacked iPhone users due to some blind brand loyalty? We need more people like [@]irnchriz[/@], not less.
  • Reply 20 of 58
    brakkenbrakken Posts: 687member
    Somehow, this news never seems to make it into CNN, Cnet or mashable. I would never imagine it's because Apple's competitors leave skid marks in their undies everyday, and that their only hope of survival is to besmirch Apple.

    The psychologically interesting thing is how far people go to ignore what they know to maintain a position.

    The only way out for Goog is to dump Andyroid and replace it with a new OS, one built and designed like iOS. Sams should try integrity.
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