50 pc of Android devices vulnerable: report

BANGALORE, INDIA: More than 50 per cent of Android devices are susceptible to security errors which facilitate rouge applications gaining access to the OS and also information stored in the devices, finds finds a report by Duo Security, a mobile security firm.

Duo Security conducted several scans using X-Ray during the last few months. X-Ray was a special tool that was developed by Duo Security to review the vulnerability of an Android device. Using the tool, devices were assessed of the increasing vulnerabilities, which were present in the different range of mobile operating system.

On the basis of the conclusions drawn from the tool, the report was prepared by the firm. Security researchers and co-founder and CTO of Duo Security, Jon Oberheide, asserted that using the X-Ray technique, they were able to assess as many as 20,000 Android gadgets, whose results have been assembled.

Oberheide said, “Privilege vulnerabilities can be exploited willingly by users in order to gain administrator (root) access on their devices and, for example, replace the firmware provided by the manufacturer with a custom-built one”.

Bogdan Botezatu from antivirus vendor BitDefender, affirmed that since they have introduced mobile security solution, root exploits have been the major aspects they had to deal with.