Security researchers discovered how to install and launch malicious applications remotely on Android devices exploiting two flaws.
Security researchers have uncovered a couple of vulnerabilities in the Google Play Store that could allow cyber criminals to install and launch malicious apps remotely on Android mobile devices.
The expert Tod Beardsley, technical lead for the Metasploit Framework at Rapid7 explained that attackers can install any arbitrary app from the Play store onto victims’ device even without the consent. This is possible by combining the exploitation of an X-Frame-Options (XFO) vulnerability with Android WebView (Jelly Bean) flaw.
The flaw affects mobile devices running Android version 4.3 Jelly Bean and earlier versions, also devices running third party browsers are vulnerable.
The researcher reported that the web browser in Android 4.3 and prior versions are vulnerable to a Universal Cross-Site Scripting (UXSS) attack, meanwhile the Google Play Store is vulnerable to a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) flaw.
In the UXSS attack scenario, hackers exploit client-side vulnerabilities affecting a web browser or browser extensions to run a XSS attack, which allows the execution of malicious code bypassing security protection mechanisms in the web browser.
“Users of these platforms may also have installed vulnerable aftermarket browsers,” Beardsley wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.”Of the vulnerable population, it is expected that many users are habitually signed into Google services, such as Gmail or YouTube. These mobile platforms are the the ones most at risk. Other browsers may also be affected.” “Until the Google Play store XFO [X-Frame-Options] gap is mitigated, users of these web applications who habitually sign in to their Google Account will remain vulnerable.”
The expert provided the JavaScript and Ruby code that could be used get a response from the play.google.com domain without an appropriate XFO header:
“This module combines two vulnerabilities to achieve remote code execution on affected Android devices. First, the module exploits CVE-2014-6041, a Universal Cross-Site Scripting (UXSS) vulnerability present in versions of Android’s open source stock browser (the AOSP Browser) prior to 4.4. Second, the Google Play store’s web interface fails to enforce a X-Frame-Options: DENY header (XFO) on some error pages, and therefore, can be targeted for script injection. As a result, this leads to remote code execution through Google Play’s remote installation feature, as any application available on the Google Play store can be installed and launched on the user’s device. This module requires that the user is logged into Google with a vulnerable browser.” reads the advisory.
To mitigate the security issue:
- Use a web browser that is not affected by UXSS flaws (i.e. Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox or Dolphin).
- Log out of the Google Play store account in order to avoid the vulnerability.
(Security Affairs – Google Android, hacking)
