With the March security update that’s already available for Pixel and some Samsung devices, Google patches this exploit, but the sad fact is that many of the devices affected by this issue will never be patched. Rather, the chipmaker had to turn to Google to patch the exploit through an Android security update. This exploit has been sitting pretty much undetected for several months at this point because MediaTek can’t fix it directly. Root can be a good thing when used properly, but a malicious hacker could have a field day with the access it provides. What can be done using this exploit? Without the user’s knowledge, a rogue app can achieve root access on an Android device, potentially causing a lot of harm to the entire system. Specifically, it affects the super-cheap devices such as some of Amazon’s Fire tablets, some Huawei and Honor smartphones, and many, many more. We won’t get into the deep details of how this all works here - you can head over to XDA for the full deep dive - but to make a long story short, this security exploit on MediaTek devices affects millions of Android devices. The vulnerability itself is lodged within the CPU’s firmware that allows a simple script to root any Android devices using affected CPUs, and that list is very long, with “virtually all” of MediaTek’s 64-bit CPUs affected. Highlighted by XDA-Developers, this severe MediaTek security exploit comes in the form of a root toolkit. This week, a severe security exploit was revealed relating to MediaTek chipsets, and the bad news is that many devices affected probably won’t ever be patched. Overall, Android is a pretty secure operating system, but bugs and exploits can form anywhere, and eventually they do.
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