Monday, August 29, 2011

Re: [android-developers] Can Android devices got normal computer viruses?

On Monday, August 29, 2011 2:56:13 PM UTC-4, Appaholics wrote:
No.

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 11:34 PM, Zwiebel <hunzw...@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm interested in this question: Can Android devices got normal
viruses or they can carry them? Can Android got a virus from a website
if the user doesn't download anything?

That's not entirely true.  While android devices would likely not be susceptible to something specifically targeting a particular desktop OS, they are potentially susceptible to similar attacks, exploiting either the same style of vulnerability of potentially even the exact same vulnerability with only the code-to-be-injected needing to be customized for android.

- An exploit of the web browser could lead to arbitrary code executed as the browser UID.  This could result in the loss of stored credentials for other sites, or set the stage for an attempt to exploit the android system itself to gain more privileged (root) access.  IIRC at least one such issue has been found and patched.

- Some other android-based client application or content viewer could be exploited in a similar fashion, to a similar end.

- Code commonality between different platforms is a potential cross-platform vulnerability.  For example, a few years ago a problem with a common jpeg library affected not only desktop PC's, but was also used (positively, by device owners) as an entry point to run custom software on handheld gaming devices. 

- Just about any computer system can carry malicious payloads to which it is not susceptible, between systems which are.

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