Ten very popular Android devices have been revealed to be hackable by malicious actors and can track their owners via Bluetooth and USB accessories .
Security researchers have discovered vulnerabilities in AT commands, which are used to communicate with the baseband software in Android smartphones.
Hackers can use these vulnerabilities to obtain IMEI and IMSI numbers, through which they gain the ability to monitor calls , forward calls to other numbers, block the calling function, prevent internet , and much more.
Below you can see the 10 devices that are affected and may be monitored:
- Samsung Galaxy S8+
- Samsung Galaxy S3
- Samsung Galaxy Note 2
- Huawei P8 Lite
- Huawei P30
- Google Pixel 2
- LG G3
- LG Nexus 5
- Motorola Nexus 6
- HTC Desire 10 Lifestyle
How do hackers manage to track device owners?
All smartphones come with a baseband processor, which performs radio frequency-related functionality for cellular connectivity, and a general-purpose application processor (AP).
The AP processor can send AT commands to interact with the baseband processor to perform various cellular network functions.
Researchers have observed that many Android smartphones allow AT commands to be sent from USB and Bluetooth accessories, which could allow hackers to use them to gain access to users' devices and then track them.
Security researcher Syed Rafiul Hussain and his collaborators Imtiaz Karim and Omar Chowdhury will announce their findings next month at a security conference.
While Samsung has decided to roll out a security update for affected devices, Huawei has yet to announce any action.
