Now may be a good time to check this out, says securo-bod
Israeli researchers who specialise in ferreting out Android vulns have discovered a new flaw in KitKat 4.4 that allows an attacker to redirect secure VPN traffic to a third-party server.
Late in 2013, the Ben Gurion University security researchers first discovered ways to persuade Android to leak data sent using VPN software.
In a blog post detailing the vuln, the researchers wrote: “A malicious app can bypass active VPN configuration – no ROOT permissions required – and redirect secure data communications to a different network address.”
They originally attributed the VPN data leakage to Samsung’s implementation of the Knox security platform, but both the mobe-maker and Google determined that the problem lay within Android – and wasn’t Sammy’s fault.
The researchers note that “elaborate investigation” was required to reproduce the vulnerability in KitKat 4.4 , because the new version uses a different security model.
Last week the same group added KitKat 4.3 to their list of vulnerable software, as The Registerreported.
Dudu Mimran, CTO of the Ben Gurion University’s Cyber Security Labs, told The Reg that the researchers have notified Google and hope that the Chocolate Factory will move quickly: “We think this has serious implications since KitKat is just rolling out and it may be a good time to check this out,” he said in an e-mail. ®