Check Point has announced that a vulnerability has been discovered in the Guard Provider app for Xiaomi smartphones. This flaw allows malicious code to be installed on devices without the owner noticing. It is ironic that the program was supposed to, on the contrary, protect the smartphone from dangerous applications.
It is reported that the vulnerability allows for a MITM ("man in the middle") attack. This works if the attacker is on the same Wi-Fi network as the victim. The attack will allow him to access all the data that this or that application transmits. It also allows you to add code for data theft, tracking or extortion. A cryptocurrency miner will also work.
The Chinese corporation has already responded and released a patch that fixes the vulnerability. However, Check Point experts believe that some smartphones are already infected. Indeed, in 2018 alone, more than 4 million Xiaomi smartphones were sold in Russia, and the gap was not immediately discovered.
At the same time, Aleksey Malnev, head of the center for monitoring and responding to information security incidents at Jet Infosystems, noted that the situation with Xiaomi is not unique. There is a similar danger for all smartphones and tablets.
βThe greatest risk of such vulnerabilities lies in their wide distribution due to the popularity of mobile devices themselves. This makes it possible to implement both large-scale attacks to form botnet networks and their subsequent malicious use, as well as targeted attacks to steal information and money from mobile clients or to penetrate corporate information systems,β the specialist explained.
And Sergey Kuznetsov, head of technical support for ESET Russia products and services, noted that the main danger lies in public and public Wi-Fi networks, since it is there that the attacker and the victim will be in the same segment.
Source: 3dnews.ru