Android Bug Sends Video Malware Via Text

For all the smartphone and tablet users out there, another bug has been reported in the Android operating system. Before you panic, it is not suspected to be currently exploited by hackers and there is already a patch available, but there is some not so good news.

The researcher, Joshua Drake, who discovered it in his lab, sent the patches along with the issue to Google a few months ago. Google also released it. The problem is that the manufacturers of the devices and the service carriers may not have pushed it out to their customers.

The vulnerability may allow an attacker to perform functions on Android devices without the end user doing a single thing. If a video is created with malware inserted and sent in the form of a text, as soon as it is received by the device, it can perform functions. The user doesn't have to view it or open it.

Issues like these underscore the importance of applying patches and updates as soon as they are made available. Also make sure you are running some type of anti-malware on mobile devices and that is always kept updated.  It is recommended that you configure the settings to update the files automatically. Then, you don't have to worry about that.

One of the criticisms security professionals and others have about patches for mobile devices running on the Android operating system is that it is ultimately up to the manufacturers and carriers as to when to release patches for vulnerabilities such as this one and for the most part, that does not appear to be a priority because they would rather users buy new devices than patch them. So, you can also try lobbying your mobile service providers and device manufacturers to push out the updates in a timely manner.

In addition, since this affects the default messaging programming on Android, consider using another one for the time being; as long as it isn't Google Hangouts. That program processes videos right away so the user does not have to spend time searching for them.

According to researchers, only about 20% of the Android devices will get updated with an upper optimistic estimate of 50%. Another fun statistic from security firm F-Secure, is that in the first quarter of 2014, 99% of mobile malware threats were designed to run on Android devices.