Samsung Smartphones Vulnerable To Remote Wipe Hack 151
DavidGilbert99 writes "Security researchers have discovered a single line of code embedded in websites which could wipe all data from your Samsung Galaxy S3 and other smartphones. Samsung smartphones including the Galaxy S3, Galaxy S2, Galaxy Ace, Galaxy Beam and Galaxy S Advance all appear to be affected by the bug which triggers a factory reset on your phone if your web browser is pointed to a particular website. Smartphones can also be directed to the code through NFC or using a QR code. Once the process has been initiated, users are have no way of stopping it. The hack was unveiled at the Ekoparty 2012 security conference in Argentina by Ravi Borgaonkar, a security researcher at the Security in Communications department at Technical University Berlin. ... Only Samsung smartphones running the company's proprietary TouchWiz user interface appear to be affected. According to telecoms engineer Pau Oliva, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is not affected, as it runs on stock Android and doesn't use the TouchWiz skin on top." Hit the link above for a video demonstration.
Re:Manufacturer's Android (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think he's talking about that. That's not full of crap from the manufacturer (Samsung). The Nexus devices are free of all of that crap.
The S III I bought recently got the root/CWM/AOKP treatment within the first couple hours of ownership (as soon as the kids went to bed).
Link Warning (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Manufacturer's Android (Score:5, Informative)
People still use the manufacturer's version of Android ? The first thing I do on any new android phone that lands in my hands is to replace the firmware with something less full of )(@#*)(#$.
I hate to break it to you, but you are not representative of "people" when it comes to this sort of thing. Most people a) are perfectly happy with everything their phone does when it comes out of the box, b) don't even know they can reflash their phone and c) wouldn't have the first clue how to go about it if they did.
This was already fixed (Score:5, Informative)
Most Galaxy S III Devices Are Not Vulnerable To USSD Wiping Exploit: It Was Already Fixed In An Update [androidpolice.com]
Re:Manufacturer's Android (Score:2, Informative)
It's actually more like 93% and very slowly diminishing (given Apple's high costs). I suspect over time we'll also see a small percentage of people become tablet-only.
However, it's interesting to see the sentiment shift. Years ago, the assumption about PC use was that Microsoft's unfair business tactics, rather than the superiority of the platform, were what caused the dominance.