Flaw in Android Devices Able to Cause Phone Data Loss & SIM Card Destruction

An apparent flaw has been reported in the Google Android mobile operating system and this flaw when exploited, is powerful enough to cause complete data loss on the phone and also capable of having the phone's SIM card to be completely destroyed. The issue was discovered by Ravi Borgaonkar a computer security researcher at the Technical University Berlin who also then highlighted it in a blog last week. According to the blog, this apparently is not the only issue plaguing the Android mobile OS as another malicious code was discovered which reportedly attacks the Samsung flag-ship mobile, the Galaxy S III. Mr. Borgaonkar however reported his findings to Google as early as June 2012 and a fix was very quickly and quietly issued but with no public mention nor acknowledgement of the flaw and Google on its part has also reportedly declined to comment on the topic and this has inadvertently given the report some credence. The issue as has been described, takes advantage of a code which allows the vulnerable phones running the newer versions of Android operating system such as Gingerbread, Ice Cream Sandwich and also Jelly Bean and specifically those made by HTC, Motorola, Samsung and Sony Ericsson to dial telephone numbers directly from the devices web browsers and this 'direct dial' feature can be exploited by hackers who can then remotely instruct phones to for instance, execute dangerous commands that can wipe a phone's entire data via automated Factory resets. Samsung, a dominant player in the mobile phone sector and one of the major Android proponents who have since explained that only the earlier produced models of the 20 Million+ selling Galaxy SIII phones are affected are advising all SIII users to check their phones for software updates (via the phone's internal update menu) to guarantee they are properly patched against the flaw. Though the above described flaw has not been proven to particularly benefit the cybercriminals and code writers directly, it is still an issue as mobile phone security continues to be a major topic of concern and especially as the flaw can also cause phones to dial costly premium rate numbers chargeable to the handset owners. In general, this is not particularly excellent news for the Android operating system which according to Google's chief Eric Schmidt now has 1.3 million activations per day and running on a reported 480 million devices worldwide and especially that users were left not knowing there was such a security exposure on their devices.   Source – Seattlepi.com