Trend Micro: bug can make Android smartphones reboot endlessly

A bug in Android allows malicious parties to perform a dos attack. This will slow down the phone and drain the battery or require a reboot. In more severe cases, an endless reboot can hit the phone.

Trend Micro warns about this on Tuesday. According to the Japanese security company, the vulnerability is in Android’s media server, in which a serious security problem was recently found. Trend Micro claims that anyone running Android 4.0.1 Jelly Bean up to 5.1.1 Lollipop is vulnerable.

To exploit the bug, attackers would have to force Android phone owners to install a rogue app or go to a site that contains an erroneous .mkv media file. Once the media server tries to play the file, the feature falls into a loop that the user can’t do anything about, according to Trend Micro. The whole system slows down until it reboots or the battery runs out.

The bug is caused by an integer overflow while parsing .mkv files, which causes the phone to loop while reading the video frames. Trend Micro has published two proof-of-concepts showing exactly how the attack works. In the worst cases, an endless reboot can cause the phone to become unusable due to a rogue app launching automatically during the operating system boot.

Trend Micro claims that it is quite difficult to get rid of a rogue app. It is possible to locate the folder, but malicious parties can choose to delay the dos attack for a while. This makes it more difficult to determine which program is causing the reboot. The security company believes that manufacturers should update the software on their outdated devices.

It is the second time in a short time that a vulnerability affects Android’s media server. Last week, a security vulnerability in that same program was revealed that made it childishly easy to access an Android system. Specifically, it involved an issue with the Stagefright framework in Android, which is responsible for movie playback.