Even though Android is pretty well secure, vulnerabilities and issues pop up every once in a while that can raise some concerns. The reality is that only a tiny percentage of users will experience such attacks from these kinds of security holes, but it’s still not something you want to just overlook.
Researchers at North Carolina State University discovered a ‘Smishing’ vulnerability in several versions of Android, Gingerbread, Ice Cream Sandwich, and Jelly Bean. In case you’re not familiar with what smishing is, it’s basically where an infected app can make it appear that you’ve received an SMS from someone in your contacts or even from a trustworthy business such as your bank.
Then, by appearing as someone you know, it can solicit personal information. While you might say you’d never fall for that, there are plenty of people who would. Google is aware of the vulnerability and said that they will be issuing a patch in a future Android release.
Thankfully, the research team isn’t revealing proof of the issue publicly, that is until Google fixes it. In the meantime, make sure you pay attention to what apps you are downloading and installing and if you see any suspicious SMS messages, it’s time you looked for the root of the problem.