Android SMS Phishing Can Stealthily Enable Malicious Settings

guest · Sep 4, 2019

Android SMS Phishing Can Stealthily Enable Malicious Settings
September 4, 2019
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...ing-can-stealthily-enable-malicious-settings/

Android smartphones from multiple vendors, including Samsung, Huawei, LG, and Sony are susceptible to an advanced type attack that can alter device settings via a short text message.
Specification issue
Researchers at Check Point found that a mobile operator's (OTA) provisioning process lacks a strong authentication mechanism that would validate messages coming from the network operator and not an unauthorized party.
This threat does not depend on the type of cellular network, though. Slava Makkaveev, one of the researchers investigating the problem, told BleepingComputer that this is a specification issue in the OMA CP protocol, which allows sending provisioning messages without authentication.
Popular phone brands susceptible
The researchers discovered that phones from Samsung, Huawei, LG, and Sony, which combined cover more than 50% of the Android phone market, can receive malicious settings through weakly-authenticated provisioning messages. "Samsung phones compound this by allowing unauthenticated OMA CP messages as well," the researchers say in a report released today.
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guest · Sep 4, 2019

mood said: ↑

Android SMS Phishing Can Stealthily Enable Malicious Settings
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Check Point: Advanced SMS Phishing Attacks Against Modern Android-based Smartphones

This attack vector relies on a process called over-the-air (OTA) provisioning, which is normally used by cellular network operators to deploy network-specific settings to a new phone joining their network. However, as we show, anyone can send OTA provisioning messages.
[...]
Conclusion
We described an advanced phishing attack flow against modern Android-based phones. This attack flow enables anyone who has a cheap USB modem to trick users into installing malicious settings onto their phones. To target some of the susceptible phones, the attacker needs to know the victims’ IMSI numbers, which can be obtained via an Android application having READ_PHONE_STATE permission.

We verified our proof of concept on the Huawei P10, LG G6, Sony Xperia XZ Premium, and a range of Samsung Galaxy phones, including S9.
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