Permission Re-delegation Hack on Android

This demos a permission-redelegation attack that leverages a vulnerability in the Settings app in Android 2.2. (The bug has been patched.)

A permission re-delegation attack is a way for a malicious app to circumvent a permission system, like the permission systems used by Android or HTML5. These permission systems are built so that an app should only be able to make an API call if the user has granted it a permission. However, in a permission re-delegation attack, a malicious application with no permissions asks a vulnerable trusted application to do the restricted task.

For more examples of this type of attack, check out the paper or slides:

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~afelt/felt_usenixsec2011.pdf
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~afelt/felt-usenixtalk.pptx

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• android