Android smartphone users are at HIGH risk! Indian govt issues warning

If you are using an Android smartphone, then know that you are at high risk of being hacked! The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology released a note which confirmed that multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in Android OS. These bugs can allow online attackers to access sensitive information on your device.

As reported by CERT-In, the presence of vulnerabilities in the Android OS can be attributed to faults in various components including the Framework, Media Framework, System Component, updates from the Google Play system, Kernel, MediaTek components, Unisoc components, Qualcomm components, and closed-source Qualcomm components. If these vulnerabilities are exploited effectively, the attacker may be able to access sensitive information, attain higher privileges, and trigger a denial of service alarm on the targeted system.

Shockingly, the vulnerability doesn’t just affect smartphones running on old OS. Instead, several smartphones running on the latest Android 13 to Android 12, 12L, 11 and 10 have been affected too. “The most severe of these issues is a high security vulnerability in the Framework component that could lead to local escalation of privilege with no additional execution privileges needed,” Android confirmed in a security note of February 2023.

How to check if your device is updated to address these issues

• An Android document confirmed that to learn how to check a device’s security patch level, you need to see, check and update your Android version.
• Security patch levels of 2023-02-01 or later address all issues associated with the 2023-02-01 security patch level.
• Security patch levels of 2023-02-05 or later address all issues associated with the 2023-02-05 security patch level and all previous patch levels.
• For some devices on Android 10 or later, the Google Play system update will have a date string that matches the 2023-02-01 security patch level.

In short, always ensure you update your smartphone to the latest update available rolled out by the respective companies.