Cloak and dagger – a new kind of attacks for Android

Re:Cloak and dagger – a new kind of attacks for Android by etjossem on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @07:25PM (#14414240)

Malicious actors and users will be alerted in equal measure, but the typical Android phone owner will tend to do nothing in response to a new security paper, while malicious actors will tend to write exploit scripts.

That's the main concern going through my mind when I see this. It would be different if the average user was a business, a developer, a security professional - but this isn't Heartbleed and we're talking about normal people this time. Are they even going to read this, and if so, what can they do besides keep an eye on their permissions?

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Re:Cloak and dagger – a new kind of attacks for Android by Jare on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @08:01PM (#14414379)

> Malicious actors and users will be alerted in equal measure

You have to assume malicious actors will find the vulnerability on their own, if they haven't already. They are already alerted.

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Re:Cloak and dagger – a new kind of attacks for Android by etjossem on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @09:36PM (#14414739)

Absolutely, but widespread disclosure does nothing to stop that from happening, and may actually enable less-sophisticated attackers to do things they weren't capable of before.

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Re:Cloak and dagger – a new kind of attacks for Android by AstralStorm on Thursday May 25, 2017 @09:44AM (#14417212)

Assuming those less sophisticated attackers don't just buy the exploit from more sophisticated ones.

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Re:Cloak and dagger – a new kind of attacks for Android by plaguuuuuu on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @11:14PM (#14415069)

>but the typical Android phone owner will tend to do nothing in response to a new security paper, while malicious actors will tend to write exploit scripts.

If there are enough open, unpatched exploits people will switch to other phone vendors.

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Re:Cloak and dagger – a new kind of attacks for Android by crazyhatfish on Thursday May 25, 2017 @06:11AM (#14416344)

I seriously doubt that. Some sources have use of WinXP at 7 percent, it should be zero, and there are plenty of open, unpatched exploits for WinXP.

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