Responding to reports that 99.7 percent of Android-based phones suffered from a security hole that made vital personal data vulnerable to hackers, Google has released an automatic fix to deal with the problem. Google is trying to assure users that no action is needed on their part.
"Today we're starting to roll out a fix which addresses a potential security flaw that could, under certain circumstances, allow a third party access to data available in calendar and contacts," said Google in a statement. "This fix requires no action from users and will roll out globally over the next few days."
The flaw was identified by Ulm University (Germany) researchers who who tested the security hole on a number of smart phones using the Android operating system. They also found that some phones sent unencrypted data, which clever hackers could "eavesdrop" on with the right tools.
"We wanted to know if it is really possible to launch an impersonation attack against Google services and started our own analysis," said researchers Bastian Könings and Jens Nickels.
"The short answer is: Yes, it is possible, and it is quite easy to do so. Further, the attack is not limited to Google Calendar and Contacts, but is theoretically feasible with all Google services using the ClientLogin authentication protocol for access to its data APIs."
Source: GameIndustry.biz
Comments
Re: Google Rolls Out Updates for Android Security Hole
Good, quick turnaround. That's what I like to see. Being able to rapidly fix security holes is as important a skill as preventing them in the first place -- because sooner or later, you're going to need to know how to do both.