Security hole could affect 99% of Android smartphones

According to German researchers, 99% of Android devices might be at risk from a vulnerability which could allow unauthorised parties to snoop on your Google Calendar and Contacts information.

The discovery by the University of Ulm researchers brings to light a serious privacy issue, and underlines the difficulty that many Android smartphone owners appear to face keeping their operating systems up-to-date.

According to the paper by Bastian Könings, Jens Nickels, and Florian Schaub, entitled “Catching AuthTokens in the Wild: The Insecurity of Google’s ClientLogin Protocol”, in Android 2.3.3 and earlier the Calendar and Contacts apps transmit information “in the clear” via HTTP, and retrieve an authentication token (authToken) from Google.

That means that there’s the potential for cybercriminals to eavesdrop on WiFi traffic and steal the authToken…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.