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posted by takyon on Thursday December 01 2016, @02:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the droids-they-are-looking-for dept.

Check Point reports that more than one million Google accounts were breached, and more than 13,000 accounts continue to be breached every day via compromised Android devices. http://blog.checkpoint.com/2016/11/30/1-million-google-accounts-breached-gooligan/

Our research exposes how the malware roots infected devices and steals authentication tokens that can be used to access data from Google Play, Gmail, Google Photos, Google Docs, G Suite, Google Drive, and more.

Check Point reached out to the Google Security team immediately with information on this campaign. Our researchers are working closely with Google to investigate the source of the Gooligan campaign.

The article also notes that Gooligan downloads a rootkit that takes advantage of multiple Android 4 and 5 exploits including the well-known VROOT (CVE-2013-6282) and Towelroot (CVE-2014-3153).

Historically, many comments were made about the dangers of monocultures, in particular the MS Windows monoculture. With the migration away from desktops to handheld devices, and with google dominating the field for both the platform (Android) and many services (GMail), there seems no reason not to believe that there'll be the same kind of monoculture-related issues for many more years.


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  • (Score: 1) by Sourcery42 on Thursday December 01 2016, @03:46PM

    by Sourcery42 (6400) on Thursday December 01 2016, @03:46PM (#435469)

    Couldn't agree more. It would be nice if Google would make guaranteed, timely updates one of the terms for an OEM to sell a phone with Google Play Services on it.

    This is a spot where open source shines. I have a 2012 phone that the manufacturer hasn't pushed an update to since 2013. Thanks to the developer community and Code Aurora it is running the latest version of Android on the November 2016 security patch. While it isn't a good solution for the average smartphone user, it is a nice option to have if you have the knowledge to take advantage of it.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:05PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:05PM (#435633) Journal

    Sorry, but Google *does* make updates available. The handset makers won't bother to make them available on their customized build.

    --
    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Sourcery42 on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:58PM

      by Sourcery42 (6400) on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:58PM (#435665)

      That's right, Google pushes a monthly security patch. However, for the most part if you're not on a Nexus or flashing custom ROMs you don't get them. Google has some T's & C's about just what handset manufacturers have to do to ship a phone with Google Play Services installed (the big scary proprietary blob that most people consider a part of android, not the open source part). I was suggesting it would be a welcome change if Google would leverage that to force the Samsungs, LGs, etc. of the android ecosystem to provide some better long term support and timely updates.