To make matters a little worse, the default Android Browser present in older versions of Android is likely to be embedded in third-party products. Those statistics are not readily available but conceivably could be in media boxes, multi-function devices, and even android on a USB stick devices that may be used worldwide.
Identification of the flaw can be tricky due to embedded versions of AOSP in other applications and third party browsers. In order to report on these vulnerable devices, BeyondTrust has the Mobile Assessment Agent which brings industry-leading zero-gap vulnerability assessment capabilities to your Android phone. With this technology, IT security teams can identify and analyze potential vulnerabilities on their organization's mobile assets, just as they do on servers and desktops. Individual smart phone users can also leverage the Agent to find vulnerabilities on their own devices. This is all for free and include the Android Browser vulnerabilities. For enterprise users, all of these findings can be securely reported to BeyondInsight.
As a small footnote, for older Android users, you can avoid much of the exposure by switching to Chrome, Firefox, or Opera. These are not vulnerable. They provide a simple mitigation path until a formal patch (if ever) is released. Learn more about BeyondTrust and our Mobile Vulnerability Assessment capabilities. Mobile devices represent the last mile of devices connecting to your infrastructure and a risk we all need to manage.
Morey J. Haber, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Security Officer at BeyondTrust
Morey J. Haber is Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Security Officer at BeyondTrust. He has more than 25 years of IT industry experience and has authored four Apress books: Privileged Attack Vectors (2 Editions), Asset Attack Vectors, and Identity Attack Vectors. In 2018, Bomgar acquired BeyondTrust and retained the BeyondTrust name. He originally joined BeyondTrust in 2012 as a part of the eEye Digital Security acquisition. Morey currently oversees BeyondTrust strategy for privileged access management and remote access solutions. In 2004, he joined eEye as Director of Security Engineering and was responsible for strategic business discussions and vulnerability management architectures in Fortune 500 clients. Prior to eEye, he was Development Manager for Computer Associates, Inc. (CA), responsible for new product beta cycles and named customer accounts. He began his career as Reliability and Maintainability Engineer for a government contractor building flight and training simulators. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.