Google recently released their June security bulletin for Android, which addresses critical vulnerabilities found in Media framework, as well as various critical vulnerabilities that are based on Qualcomm components. As with previous Android security updates, this month’s bulletin is available via over-the-air updates for native Android devices or via service providers and manufacturers for non-native devices.
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65 million: the number of times we’ve blocked mobile threats in 2016. By December 2016, the total number of unique samples of malicious Android apps we’ve collected and analyzed hit the 19.2 million mark—a huge leap from the 10.7 million samples collected in 2015.
Indeed, the ubiquity of mobile devices among individual users and organizations, along with advances in technologies that power them, reflect the exponential proliferation, increasing complexity and expanding capabilities of mobile threats.
While the routines and infection chain of mobile threats are familiar territory, 2016 brought threats with increased diversity, scale, and scope to the mobile landscape. More enterprises felt the brunt of mobile malware as BYOD and company-owned devices become more commonplace, while ransomware became rampant as the mobile user base continued to become a viable target for cybercriminals. More vulnerabilities were also discovered and disclosed, enabling bad guys to broaden their attack vectors, fine-tune their malware, increase their distribution methods, and in particular, invade iOS’s walled garden.
Read MoreKernel debugging gives security researchers a tool to monitor and control a device under analysis. On desktop platforms such as Windows, macOS, and Linux, this is easy to perform. However, it is more difficult to do kernel debugging on Android devices such as the Google Nexus 6P . In this post, I describe a method to perform kernel debugging on the Nexus 6P and the Google Pixel, without the need for any specialized hardware.
Read More Earlier this year, we talked about how cybercriminals took advantage of the popularity of Pokemon Go to launch their own malicious apps. As 2016 comes to a close, we observe the same thing happening to another of Nintendo’s game properties: Super Mario.
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A few weeks ago, I spoke at Black Hat Europe 2016 on Pocket-Sized Badness: Why Ransomware Comes as a Plot Twist in the Cat-Mouse Game. While watching mobile ransomware from April 2015 to April 2016, I noticed a big spike in the number of Android ransomware samples. During that year, the number of Android ransomware increased by 140%. In certain areas, mobile ransomware accounts for up to 22 percent of mobile malware overall! (These numbers were obtained from the Trend Micro Mobile App Reputation Service.) One trend noticed during this time is that it closely mirrors the path paved by traditional ransomware: like other ransomware types, mobile ransomware is constantly evolving and growing.
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