Beware Android users! Over 50 security flaws could be affecting your smartphones
CERT-In has warned about multiple security vulnerabilities affecting three major versions of Android, across various parts of Google's OS.
Android users have been warned about multiple vulnerabilities that are affecting the smartphone’s security by CERT-In — or Indian Computer Emergency Response Team. According to the security agency, any malicious user or hackers might exploit these security flaws or vulnerabilities to execute dangerous code, collect sensitive data, and launch a denial-of-service (DoS) attack on a victim.
As per the vulnerability note issued by CERT-In, around 51 security flaws are affecting the Android OS.
Currently, the security vulnerabilities affect three major versions of Android, Android 13, Android 12, Android 12L, and Android 11. It is currently unclear whether Android 14 is also affected as the source code for Android 14 was published a few days before the advisory was issued.
These vulnerabilities affect various parts of Google’s operating system (OS) — from the framework to components from Arm, MediaTek, Qualcomm, Unisoc, and others, according to the cybersecurity agency.
The nodal agency responsible for dealing with cybersecurity issues and threats has issued a critical severity rating for the vulnerability note. CERT-In has also assigned a Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) number to all the entries affected by these vulnerabilities. .
The 51 security flaws listed by CERT-In affect various parts of the Android operating system from the Android framework, the Android system, and Google Play system updates. Apart from these, Arm, MediaTek, Unisoc, and Qualcomm, are also affected by these vulnerabilities.
Hackers can exploit these flaws to steal sensitive information, potentially elevate their privileges on a target’s smartphone, execute arbitrary and malicious code, and even perform a denial-of-service (DoS) attack, warned CERT-In.
For example, attackers could actively exploit CVE-2023-4863 and CVE-2023-4211 flaws to do malicious activities. The users have been advised to apply security patches immediately. These flaws relate to the Chromium engine that powers Google’s browser, and GPU memory processing operations on Android, respectively.
So android users should hurry and install the latest update carrying security patches to get rid of the vulnerabilities affecting their smarrtphone. If your phone does not have the latest security patch then you can wait for the next security update to fix these security flaws.
Ms Kalinga