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Millions Of Xiaomi Phones at Risk Of Remotely Installed Malware (zdnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the security-woes dept.

Zack Whittaker, reporting for ZDNet: Millions of Xiaomi phones are vulnerable to a flaw that could allow an attacker to remotely install malware. The vulnerability, now fixed, was found in the analytics package in Xiaomi's custom-built Android-based operating system. Security researchers at IBM, who found the flaw, discovered a number of apps in the package that were vulnerable to a remote code execution flaw through a man-in-the-middle attack -- one of which would allow an attacker to run arbitrary code at the system-level. In other words, an attacker could inject a link to a malicious Android app package, which is extracted and executed at the system level.

13 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Are all MediaTek Phones vulnerable? by Zombie+Ryushu · · Score: 2

    Are all MediaTek Phones vulnerable? I have a MediaTek Phone Produced by BLU. I'm wondering if I am vulnerable to this. The issue with BLU Phones is they are are rootable, but Cyanogen Mod does not support them very well. The Particular BLU Studio I have is discontinued.

    Of particular concern is that BLU Phones will soft brick if they are rooted and they OTA update without a complete reflash. My Phone is rooted, so it falls into this category where I can't OTA update it again.

    Re-flashing carries with it the hazard that if the NVRAM of the Phone is wiped out, the Phone loses its IMEI info, Bluetooth, and 802.11 MAC

    1. Re:Are all MediaTek Phones vulnerable? by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Of particular concern is that BLU Phones will soft brick if they are rooted and they OTA update without a complete reflash. My Phone is rooted, so it falls into this category where I can't OTA update it again.

      you don't have an unroot? I can not only unroot my moto g trivially, but I can re-lock the bootloader.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Are all MediaTek Phones vulnerable? by Zombie+Ryushu · · Score: 1

      It has more to do with the inconsistent state of the File System.

    3. Re:Are all MediaTek Phones vulnerable? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      It has more to do with the inconsistent state of the File System.

      What does that mean? Un-rooting is expected to put things back as they were.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. News but few here probably have such phones by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · · Score: 1

    Given how Xiaomi only sells their phones in Asia, I'm sure that the 1% or less of Slashdotters who live in a place where Xiaomi actually sells their phones and on top of that actually have a Xiaomi phone instead of a competitor's phone thank you.

    1. Re:News but few here probably have such phones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A lot of people import Xiaomi phones from China. They offer outstanding value for money and are amazingly high quality for the price.

      I use a Redmi Note 2 Prime which I bought for the equivalent of about £130 a year ago. The 5.5inch 1080p IPS screen is very good, the 13mp camera fives great photographs, and the 2.2GHz 8 core Helio X10 processor more than meets my needs. The battery life is good, and it also has a MicroSD expansion slot, which many phones annoyingly lack. MiUI is also a lot better than Android, except for the fact that they bizarrely chose to disable the mass storage mode when you connect the phone to your computer. Xiaomi are also much better at supporting their phones in the long term, and provide software updates for many years.

      Overall, I really can't understand why more people don't import Xiaomi phones since an equivalent phone in the UK would be about 2.5x to 4x the price.

    2. Re:News but few here probably have such phones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      A lot of people import Xiaomi phones from China. They offer outstanding value for money and are amazingly high quality for the price.

      Overall, I really can't understand why more people don't import Xiaomi phones since an equivalent phone in the UK would be about 2.5x to 4x the price.

      Because they come with built in root kits?

    3. Re:News but few here probably have such phones by lfourrier · · Score: 1
      Overall, I really can't understand why more people don't import Xiaomi phones ...

      because they don't (yet) support the 800 4G band.

  3. I have one... by Ecuador · · Score: 1

    I have one, and since I am writing what looks to me right now to be the 8th post here, 12.5% of posters have a Xiaomi!

    On the more serious side, I ordered mine (I live in the UK) from a Chinese seller who has a warehouse in the EU, and I know a few other people who ordered the same way (whether they are in UK, Greece, Netherlands etc).
    Specifically, I bought the Mi4 a year ago for a little over $200, i.e. less than half the cost of other flagship phones with comparable (or sometimes less) specs. Naturally, it came full of bloatware/spywhere, on a Xiaomi you can actually open a browser, download a clean image from the manufacturer website, restart and have it clean-install just like that, not even need of a PC. Oh, and it has dual-boot, keeping a "clean" OS version in case you run into trouble.
    Overall it blows away my previous Samsung (which still cost more than the Xiaomi last year, even second hand!!) in every aspect, including - believe it or not - manufacturer support, since you have immediate access to each (of the frequent) new version of the OS for what it seems like at least some years after release of a Xiaomi phone. It is an amazing value and I don't think I'll ever spend much more than $200 on a phone again...
    Caveat: Chinese resellers will install spyware (not only on Xiaomi), so clean install once you get a phone!

    --
    Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
  4. Chinese manufacturer by Gojira+Shipi-Taro · · Score: 2

    With Chinese Government mandated backdoors in their "custom" Android build, no doubt.

    Color me SHOCKED.

    --
    "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
  5. MitM attack in China by Ritz_Just_Ritz · · Score: 2

    IT sure smells like a government mandated "feature" rather than a bug since the Chinese government can easily accomplish MitM attacks on Chinese networks.

  6. Mind the hacked Chinese ROM by Elledan · · Score: 1

    I got a Xiaomi Mi 5 smartphone a while ago (bought via HonorBuy) and found out that the reseller had put a hacked (internationalised) Chinese ROM on my phone. This meant that my phone would not be getting any official Xiaomi updates, let alone frequent updates from the reseller.

    To solve this I had to create a Xiaomi account, ask Xiaomi permission to unlock bootloaders on their phones (received this after a few days) and perform a fastboot upgrade to the latest available Xiaomi international ROM.

    After this I can update to the latest international ROM without issues, fortunately, which currently is 7.5.2.

    --
    Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
  7. Ha ha by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    Ha ha, that's hilarious! Errr, I mean, "How awful!!"

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...