It has been a busy week for Android users with not one but two major security alerts. The most recent alert is a warning to smartphone users in India from the country’s government. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has issued a new security warning for millions of Android users with its latest bulletin dated August 7, 2024.
The Indian government has pointed out that the latest issues could be exploited by attackers to obtain sensitive information and execute arbitrary code on your phone.
Android security alert from CERT-In, what it says
The new vulnerabilities affect all phones running on Android versions 12, 12L, 13 and even Android 14. When you combine all these versions, the number of phones running these in India would easily be in the millions and putting them under a high severity ranked alert is worth everyone’s attention.
CERT-In has highlighted that multiple vulnerabilities exist in Android due to flaws in the framework, system, kernel, ARM components, Imagination Technologies, MediaTek components, Qualcomm components, and Qualcomm closed-source components.
Which Android phones are affected, should you be worried?
Having so many chip makers on the affected list means that brands like Samsung, Realme, OnePlus, Xiaomi, and Vivo have to be concerned about the issue, and ensure that they release security patches for these vulnerabilities immediately.
The good news is, most phone brands have been notified of these issues, and the latest security patch has already been released, and everyone is expected to receive it in the next couple of weeks. This alert comes just days after Google released its August software update for eligible Pixel devices, starting with the Pixel 6 series, allowing them to patch zero-day security issues that were labeled critical by Google’s security threat group.
Qualcomm has confirmed that a patch has been released ahead of the security bulletin release. “For the issues mentioned, Qualcomm made fixes available to its OEMs ahead of the August Android security bulletin. We encourage end users to apply security updates as they become available from device manufacturers,” a Qualcomm spokesperson shared details with News18 Tech. We expect other vendors and brands to roll out similar updates in the coming days.
