Gadgetory

for security flaws effect over 900 million Android devices researchers a security firm checkpoint say that a quartet of security flaws in Qualcomm chipsets could be exploited to give an attacker full control of your Android device checkpoint has dubbed the flaws quadrotor there's no word on why the company did not go with a much better nickname the Four Horsemen of the Android apocalypse but I had to guess I'd say was so Google would find checkpoint site first with a term quadrotor anyway checkpoint says that quadrotor is a set of 4 vulnerabilities affecting Android devices using Qualcomm chipsets if any of the four are exploited an Android device could be compromised an attacker would have to get you to download a malicious app this app would not ask for any special permissions so that you wouldn't even know that this app is up to no good after installation the app could take advantage of the flaws to gain route control of your phone when a phone is rooted anything can be installed or changed qualcomm chips are lots of popular phones here are just some of the phone models affected the Google Nexus 5x and 6p the HTC One em 10 the LG g5 and the US versions of the samsung galaxy s7 and s7 edge this all sounds horrible huh so here's the good news checkpoint says there is no evidence the flaws have been exploited in the wild additionally the research firm told Qualcomm about the issue back in April then way to the industry standard of 90 days before telling the world Qualcomm confirmed a checkpoint it released patches to the phone and tablet makers Google told ZDNet that one of the flaws will be packed in a September update to Android if you're concerned that your device is affected checkpoint released a free Android app called quadrotor scanner on the Google Play Store download away that's it for this tech news update I'm Aya's Akhtar and you can stay on top of the biggest stories at cnet.com slash