With the G1 smartphone now
available in the UK it didn’t take anyone too long to find a security
vulnerability in Google answer to Apple’s iPhone.
Owner’s of
the search engine giant’s new phone have begun to receive updates to
fix software in the phone that could leave it open to attack from
hackers. The flaw was discovered by security researchers last week.
Researchers
at Independent Security Evaluators found that Android, which is based
on open source software and running on HTC’s G1 handset, had outdated
components that miss out on a fix to a
previously known vulnerability.
According to the researcher’s a note on the researcher’s website, Android users who visit malicious websites could have sensitive data stolen, such as passwords,
information entered into a web application form and cookies.
But the researchers admitted that the impact of the attack is fairly limited because of Android’s security
architecture. A hacker can’t control functions such as the dialler.
Details of how to update your Gphone can be found at the Android community.