SHAREit app with over a billion installs suffers security vulnerability days before U

[tarekma7]

SHAREit app with over a billion installs suffers security vulnerability days before US ban

The popular SHAREit app isn't just set to be banned in the US in the next three days; it was also apparently vulnerable to a (slightly convoluted) attack. The technical details are a bit of a slog, but in short, the app could indirectly allow for the execution of arbitrary code remotely, read or overwrite the app's local files, or even allow for third-party APKs to be installed. Developers of the app, which claims over a billion installs at the Play Store, were notified of the vulnerability three months ago, but according to Trend Micro, they haven't done anything to address it.


You can click through the source link down at the bottom for all the technical details, but the short version is that any app can hand SHAREit a bit of code to trigger further arbitrary execution of code by the app, also allowing it to read and write from the app's siloed storage. On top of that, SHAREit can be instructed to download an APK from a handful of hard-coded URLs and install it. Thankfully, Chrome is smart enough to detect and mitigate this kind of attack hand-off when used as a vector to trigger it, but other avenues are also possible, and it's also subject to a sort of man-in-the-middle attack via storage. It's all pretty convoluted, but this can be combined in a way that could leave customer's devices vulnerable — though, admittedly, it sounds like users would have to participate in specific actions to make it effective.


More info HERE