Millions of Android phones with Qualcomm and MediaTek chips may have been hacked

Developed by Apple and released in 2004, the Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) audio file encoding format enables lossless compression of digital music files.

In late 2011, Apple released the open source code of this format. Since then, ALAC has been integrated into not only Apple’s ecosystem but also many other platforms and devices, including smartphones. smartphone Android and Windows computers.

Over the years, Apple has continuously improved and fixed bugs for the ALAC format. However, the version of ALAC used by third-party manufacturers has not been updated since 2011.

According to researchers at Check Point Research, two major mobile chip manufacturers Qualcomm and MediaTek have integrated the ALAC format into the audio codecs on their chips. These chips are already used by more than half of smartphones globally.

Experts warn, by taking advantage gap In this way, bad actors can perform remote device attacks, thereby taking control of multimedia data on the device, and even can access the camera of the compromised machine.

Both Qualcomm and MediaTek have released patches to fix the vulnerability since December 2021. However, according to Check Point Research, about 67% of Android smartphones could have been attacked through this vulnerability.

* Invite readers to watch programs broadcast by Vietnam Television on TV Online and VTVGo!