Gadgetory

it only takes one text message to hack an Android phone I'm Bridget Carey this is your scene at updates another week another devastating hack revealed we all may feel numb to hacking reports by now but if you have an Android phone you'll want to pay attention researchers are warning about a glitch that impacts 95% of Android phones it seems a hacker can take control of an Android phone to steal data and spy on a user and all it takes is for a hacker to send you one text message laced with a poisonous video attachment you don't even need to open a text message or play the video to be infected this vulnerability is being referred to as stage fright named after the Android software that reads media files the problem is with how Android reads a video embedded in a text message some text messaging apps like Google's hangouts may read the video file before you open it and thereby infect you before you even know you've got a text once that text message goes through a hacker can copy or delete data from the phone or even access the microphone and camera to spy on you at least that's how it's being described by Android researcher Joshua Drake of the security firm as imperium he's releasing details of his findings next week at the black hat hacker conference Drake shared some early details in an interview to NPR but before going public he did notify Google about the flaw in a statement Google thanked Drake for his findings and said it is sending the fix for all Android devices to its partners now the question is how long will it take before Samsung LG HTC and Motorola and others push out their update to their Android models if they don't send out software updates soon you may want to consider blocking text messages from unknown numbers in a conversation I had with Drake on Twitter he said blocking text from unknown numbers could be a temporary fix but it doesn't stop you from getting hit in other ways such as stumbling on that malicious video code on a website it's estimated that more than 950 million Android phones and tablets are at risk in other Google news the company is no longer requiring you to have a Google Play account if you want to sign up to YouTube or another Google service back in 2013 Google wanted to grow its social network and to do that it required you to have a Google+ profile if you wanted to sign up for YouTube or post comments that's no longer the case the company says the social network is still going to be around but it has a new mission to connect people based on shared interests that's it for this tech news update there's more at cnet.com from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey