# Any Android device not running Pie can be tracked and located thanks to new vulnerability



## Deleted member 55181 (Sep 3, 2018)

https://www.phonearena.com/news/And...ack-and-locate-older-Android-devices_id108406

A research report from research firm _Nightwatch Cybersecurity_ reveals the latter's discovery of a new Android vulnerability. The flaw allows apps to ignore permissions to gain access to information that is found in system broadcasts. That includes the name of the Wi-Fi network being used by a device, BSSID, the MAC address of the device, DNS server information and local IP addresses.

With this information, a malicious app could locate, geolocate and track any Android device right down to a street address. In addition, a hacker could look around a Wi-Fi network unchallenged, and even attack it. There is some good news and bad news about this vulnerability. The good news is that Google apparently fixed the flaw with Android 9.0 Pie. The bad news is that less than .1% of Android users are running the latest build of Android on their phones. Nightwatch Cybersecurity says that Google is not planning on fixing this flaw on older versions of the OS.

Not only are older Android devices running pre-Pie builds vulnerable to this flaw, devices powered by a forked version of Android are also open to this attack. Amazon's Fire Phone and Fire Tablets are driven by this variant of Google's open source operating system, which relies on apps and content from Amazon instead of Google.



> "System broadcasts by Android OS expose information about the user’s device to all applications running on the device. This includes the WiFi network name, BSSID, local IP addresses, DNS server information and the MAC address. Some of this information (MAC address) is no longer available via APIs on Android 6 and higher, and extra permissions are normally required to access the rest of this information. However, by listening to these broadcasts, any application on the device can capture this information thus bypassing any permission checks and existing mitigations."-Nightwatch Cybersecurity



Unfortunately, with Google deciding not to protect older versions of Android, and the distribution of Android 9.0 Pie as limited as any new Android build, your best bet is to refrain from sideloading any unofficial app that could be used to take advantage of the vulnerability.

​And what is it all about?

According to the team, Android seo-Fi connection and the network interface using two functions. These are: WifiManager: NETWORK_STATE_CHANGED_ACTION and WIFI_P2P_THIS_DEVICE_CHANGED_ACTION WifiPanager2. This information includes the MAC address of the device, the BSSID and the name of the IP address. At the same time, they are available for all applications.

Applications can also access this information via the WifiManager class. Typically, this requires permission "ACCESS_WIFI_STATE" in the application manifest. Geo-location via Wi-Fi usually requires "ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" or "ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION." What's more, on Android systems version 6.0 and newer, the actual transmissions does not need any of them, it is possible to receive the MAC address on the Android 6.0 or newer.


----------



## ralphbsz (Sep 5, 2018)

Sorry, but your headline is sensationalistic and wrong.  The problem is not "Any Android device ... can be tracked and located".  Instead, it should read: "Any Android device where the user has installed malicious software can be tracked and located".  The problem is not Android itself; the problem is that Android failed to protect this particular bit of information against malicious software.  Which the human user must have intentionally (albeit perhaps unknowingly) installed.

What do we learn from this?  Do not install software that is not trustworthy.  Now, we know that this rule is often ignored, which is why more modern versions of Android have "belt and suspenders": Even if you do install malicious software, it can not exploit this particular hole.


----------

