When Xiaomi launched its current flagship Mi 10 series, the company also unveiled its new 65W fast charger that utilized gallium nitride technology (or GaN). However, recent reports have revealed that the new fast charger is not available on multiple platforms, and the reason for this could be a potential vulnerability.

According to a new report, Xiaomi’s smartphone department received a risk reminder from a 3rd party security team. This team stated that the Xiaomi 65W fast charger is technically vulnerable at the moment. The product uses a rewritable eFlash / MTP chip to fix potential problems and updates the charging protocol. However, this entire firmware is unencrypted, meaning there is a possibility for hackers to modify it.

Editor’s Pick: Flipkart will commence sales of products including smartphones from April 20

In other words, hackers can potentially cause a very high voltage output, which runs the risk of damage to the product or worse the customer. Thus, Xiaomi has officially removed its 65W GaN fast charger from different platforms where it is on sale, citing emergency reasons. It has also been taken away from shelves of offline physical stores as well.

Notably, users need not worry about an explosion or their devices catching fire since the smartphone also features overvoltage protection. Current gen handsets have a protection state of intermittent charging or no charging. Thus, if the voltage crosses 20V, the built in OVP will kick in to protect the hardware inside the smartphone. Although, peripheral accessories like headphones may get damaged due to this. Xiaomi is expected to be working on fixing this issue currently, and it’s after sales service for users can be contacted for more information.

UP NEXT: OPPO Find X2 Neo 5G new renders appear ahead of rumored April end launch

(Via)

The post Xiaomi 65W GaN charger sale suspended due to potential vulnerability appeared first on Gizmochina.

A new bug has been found in the camera app from Google, Samsung, and other OEMs which can secretly spy on the owner using their own phone’s cameras. For the hijacking to succeed, all the malicious app needs is to be granted data storage permissions.

Google has been lately focusing on securing the user data with the app privacy and the company has employed a more fine-grained permission system that only asked for and granted access to certain hardware capabilities on a case-by-case basis. But unfortunately, a bug reported by Checkmarx last July is able to circumvent that using what looks like a legit non-camera app.

The application would look harmless both to users and to Google’s automated anti-malware systems and it may not even ask for permissions beyond accessing data storage, perhaps to save settings or files. But the bug would allow to hijack camera apps, which also use storage permissions to save photos and videos, and are able to remotely and silently control the camera app to take photos or record videos or even use the camera app’s GPS access to get the phone’s location.

EDITOR’S PICK: OPPO announces ColorOS 7 with lighter visuals, faster UI, & a special Flashback button

Checkmarx researchers, who discovered the flaw, said in its Tuesday analysis: “Unfortunately, storage permissions are very broad and these permissions give access to the entire SD card. There are a large number of applications, with legitimate use-cases, that request access to this storage, yet have no special interest in photos or videos. In fact, it’s one of the most common requested permissions observed.”

While the camera app from other OEMs might also be affected, the vulnerability has been named to affect camera apps from Google and Samsung. Following the rules of disclosure, the security research group had already alerted Google about the vulnerability in July, with Samsung acknowledging the bug in August this year. While Google said that the company has already patched the issue, Samsung is yet to give a statement.

UP NEXT: Redmi K30 could feature a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, 120Hz display

(Source)

The post Samsung and Google Camera apps vulnerable to hijacking, fix is on the way appeared first on Gizmochina.