Your Android Phone Can Be Hacked By Opening An Image

If you are an Android user, you should be careful while opening an image in your phone downloaded from any random website or received from an unknown sender.

Also see: Best Hacking Apps for Android

Google has reported a series of bugs that allow hackers to attack your Android phone using a malicious PNG file. An attacker can execute computer code remotely by a maliciously crafted PNG image. The malicious code triggers just by opening the PNG file on the phone and malware will run with high-level privileges.

These critical vulnerabilities affect millions of devices running on Android 7.0 Nougat to its current Android 9.0 Pie.

These vulnerabilities are identified as CVE-2019-1986, CVE-2019-1987, and CVE-2019-1988. Google has already rolled out the patch to address this issue in February Android Security Updates. Google has patched a total of 42 security vulnerabilities, 11 of which are rated critical, 30 high and one moderate in severity.

However, several third-party smartphone makers take weeks or months to roll out security patches to their phones. Several old devices will also not receive the update at all.