The Nexus and the SMS of Death - Computer Point

identified a bug in message handling “flash” on the terminals Nexus. A troublesome problem for the user even if not dangerous from the point of view of safety. At least not for the moment. The patch Google latita

Rome – The researcher Bogdan Alecu has discovered a bug on the terminals Nexus (Galaxy Nexus, Nexus Nexus 4 and 5) in the management of SMS sent in a “flash” (in technical terms, those of “class 0″), a bug that can lead to “freeze” of Android, crash / restart the terminal or interruption of coverage on the cellular network.

Alecu says he tried the attack on various terminals and have failed in other 20 cases, resistant to the problem results in contrast to the Nexus: in this case, instead, sending dozens of text messages that require attention and response by the recipient inevitably leads to the effects indicated by the video .

The bug is present on all versions of Android tested by up to KitKat Ice Cream (Android 4.4), says the researcher, Google has already been felt for some time but promise of resolving patch (already announced in Alecu for Android 4.3) is not seen still no sign on the horizon.The bug in the handling of flash SMS is apparently not related to any security vulnerabilities at a low level, even if the researcher is a serious vulnerability which should be answered by Google as soon as possible.

Waiting for an intervention (in this point of time) from Mountain View, SMS to defend against burst you can just use an app called “firewall” (inspired by the research work of Alecu) can limit the number of received text messages.

Alfonso Maruccia

The Nexus and the SMS of Death - Computer Point