In life, there are always two sides to a coin, and the same applies to the world of modern operating systems. Closed source operating systems lack an independent code review most of the time, so you cannot quite pin your finger on what is happening, which means backdoors that have been included in the device – whether through malicious intent or otherwise, might be a way that an attacker is able to cause issues for the user. Paul Kocialkowski, a developer for a fully free/open version of Android, has mentioned that he discovered a backdoor which has been included in some of the devices from the Samsung Galaxy family.
Kocialkowski commented on how he discovered a Samsung program which ran in the background, and this program was bound to the communications processor, allowing the modem to remotely read, write, and delete files on the user’s phone storage. Other Samsung devices also offered this program enough rights to gain access to as well as make modifications to the user’s personal data.
Kocialkowski mentioned, “Provided that the modem runs proprietary software and can be remotely controlled, that backdoor provides remote access to the phone’s data, even in the case where the modem is isolated and cannot access the storage directly.”
Hopefully Samsung will respond to this backdoor sooner rather than later.
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