Connect with us

Mobile

Android Vulnerability Could Lead Your Phone to Be Wiped If You Visit a Malicious Website

Published

on

It’s been reported earlier on the Internet that a vulnerability on Samsung-made Android devices with the TouchWiz UI could lead those phones to be wiped–or in geek terms, hard reseted–if they visit a website with malicious HTML code. However, later reports say that the vulnerability isn’t just limited to Samsung phones or devices using the company’s TouchWiz UI, and instead the vulnerability affects Android in general.

android-virusAccording to the latest report on GizmodoAndroid users who visit a webpage with the code “tel:*2767*3855%23” in an HTML frame would have their Android smartphones wiped. Essentially, the code prompts the phone to dial the specific codes and the phone will subsequently undergo a hard reset, wiping all content, data, apps, or downloads stored on the phone.

As always, it is best to not visit an unknown or foreign website on your computer or on your smartphone. As the popularity of smartphones grow, there will be more malicious attacks on smartphone users, either to steal information or make owner’s lives more difficult like wiping the data off of a smartphone in this case.

Samsung is reported to be aware of this issue for a few months now and a new firmware update for the Galaxy S III flagship (number 4.0.4) addresses and patches this vulnerability.

In addition to Samsung Galaxy S III smartphones, the vulnerability was also present on the HTC One X and the Motorola Defy suggesting that problem may be Android-wide and not limited to Samsung Android devices as previously reported.

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Al

    09/26/2012 at 7:27 am

    I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple has something to do with that.

  2. Rick E. Schwartz

    09/26/2012 at 10:38 am

    First off this is old news. Everyone else ran this story yesterday. Those reporters who actually looked into this found out the problem has already been fixed and reported that yesterday as well. Keep up the good work.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.