Researchers in the city of Norway have very well discovered the android vulnerability which will be easily exploited to any extent so that stealing of the credentials will be done very easily. This particular vulnerability is named Strandhogg which is a word that will be considered derived from the old NORSE language. It was very first detected in the year December 2019 with the help of an East European company which was a security company working in the financial sector. The company very well noticed that money was disappearing from the bank of different kinds of customers which highlighted the presence of this particular issue.
Several researchers across the globe also claim that this particular vulnerability will be allowing the attackers to launch sophisticated attacks without any need for an android device to be rooted. The attackers can exploit the operating system with the help of task affinity to launch the attacks and can also assume any kind of entity within the operating system in the whole process. The researchers in the industry have also very well pointed out that vulnerability will be stepping from the android multitasking features and ultimately will be allowing a wide range of task hijacking attacks. This will be giving the attackers a complete ability to spoof the user interface so that the overall entity will be looking like the real one without any kind of problem.
Approximately more than the top 500 applications are at a risk with the help of the presence of this particular vulnerability which will be making the whole android ecosystem very much vulnerable. Strandhogg is very much unique because it will never be requiring the device to be rooted or performing sophisticated attacks and ultimately it will never be requiring any kind of specific permission in comparison to the normal application. This issue can be exploited by the attacker very easily because it will be allowing them to cover up the application in comparison to any other kind of trustworthy user. This particular android vulnerability can be exploited in the wild as a malicious application and can even steal the banking and login credentials of the device user. According to the researchers in the android security whenever the user will be opening the device or application of the device it will be displaying a very fake user interface over the actual application which could trick the users into thinking that everything is a legitimate application. Whenever the concerned people will be typing the username and password in this case the unethical ones will be stealing the data with the help of this aspect and further will be receiving the data very instantly from the device.
This particular concept is known as privilege escalation by taking the users into granted permission. Ultimately it will help cause different kinds of problems in the form of reading text messages, viewing the data of location, listening to phone calls and even having the access to the camera of the device.
How will be the Strandhogg working?
Strandhogg is known as the basic security problem which will be happening during multitasking whenever the user will be switching between different kinds of procedures and tasks. This particular operating system will be using the technique known as re-parenting and ultimately will be diverting the processor power of the device to the things which are currently being used on the screen. Whenever the user will be clicking on the genuine application the malicious coding application will be fired up at the same time and ultimately both of them will be in the use. According to the researchers’ different kinds of malicious applications are being distributed with the help of Google play store with the help of downloader applications or droppers which means that whenever the user will be accidentally installing it or will be getting trapped in the entire situation. The dropper is known as the application that will be pretending to have the same functionality as the popular application for example a game, photo editing app, utility app and other associated things. Installation of this particular application can execute malicious tasks in the background and the legitimate-looking proper can install the problem which will be taking complete advantage of the Strandhogg vulnerabilities. Researchers also very well justify that there has been real evidence of the attacks in this particular case which could cause serious damage, especially to the mobile banking user in a single case without any kind of problem.
Apart from the above-mentioned points, people need to pay attention to the element of the detection of the Strandhogg which is not directly possible but several kinds of organisations are consistently putting efforts in this case. Even if the user will be buttoning or noticing the presence of any kind of buttons on the application which are not working properly it will be showing unexpected behaviour and things could get suspicious. Researchers in this particular case very well justify that everyone has to deal with the shifting of the home screen and other associated things very well and further people need to retrieve the basic task information with the help of android SDK. Researchers are very well pinpointed the developer of the genuine application in this case so that task affinity will be understood very easily and there is no scope of any kind of problem. Over the past few years, the screen overlay attack on the banking application has significantly increased and ultimately can cause different kinds of problems in the whole process.
Then, focusing on the protection of vital information is very much important in this particular case so that everything will be sorted out right from the very beginning and further depending on the companies like Appsealing is considered to be a great approach. This particular aspect will help provide people with a good understanding of things so that everyone can at least plan out the dealing with the concept of Strandhogg in the whole process very well and further will be able to survive in the competitive environment very safely and securely.
