Vulnerabilities detected on millions of Android phones, update to latest security patch: CERT-In

With more than 70 percent market share, Android rules the smartphone industry. As per the latest estimate, there are more than three billion active Android handsets around the world. But, it also attracts a lot of cyber criminals to prey on naive users.

Android phone owners are always advised to stay away from shady websites and also install apps only from Google Play Store only. But, still, people venture too far into the web and in the garb of getting a good deal on photo editing apps or any service-oriented applications for free, they install them and repent. Even Google tries its best to keep the web safe for all and regularly looks out for malware circulating on the web and keeps a check on bad apps too.

However, threat actors use ingenious ways to find loopholes to infiltrate Android phones. In the latest instance, new vulnerabilities have been detected in phones with Android 10, 11, 12, 12L, and the latest Android 13 too. This means millions of Android phones are at risk of security threats. If the issue is not fixed soon enough, bad actors can be able to hack the phone and steal official or personal information and even make the device inoperable too.

“If successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to gain elevated privileges, access sensitive information, and cause a denial of service condition on the targeted system,” said CERT-In (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team).

Even team Android too acknowledge the issue and actually notified the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers) a month ago. Google has released the October 2022 security patch with a fix for the aforementioned vulnerabilities to all eligible devices.

Owners of phones with Android 10, 11, 12, 12L, or 13 are advised to update to the latest October security patch.

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