Samsung, the world's most popular smartphone vendor, left millions of its customers at the mercy of hackers just because it forgot to renew one of its internet domains - ssuggest.com. It was used to operate the application With Suggest, which comes pre-installed on the company's older phones. So if you own one, then you were at risk.
The vulnerability was discovered by security researchers from Anubis Labs, who managed to gain control over the domain. João Gouveia, head of technology at Anubis Labs, revealed that Samsung simply allowed anyone to register the domain, and if it fell into the wrong hands, it could be used to take over apps and thus the phone. Millions of Samsung smartphones could soon be loaded with malicious applications
Gouveia, which acquired the domain, saw more than 620 million connections from 2,1 million unique devices in just 24 hours after taking control. The S Suggest app has access to permissions that include remotely restarting the phone or installing apps and packages. Through the domain, it was thus possible to install basically anything on all connected devices.
S Suggest app rights:
Ben Actis, an independent security analyst, echoed Anubis Labs' claims, saying that if a malicious hacker took control of the domain, they would have the ability to push malicious apps onto the device. Gouveia stated that he is willing to return the Samsung domain. Although the South Korean company has admitted that it has lost control over the domain, on the contrary, it refutes the claim that it would be possible to install malicious applications on phones and tablets with the S Suggest application after taking control of it, saying that this is not possible through the domain.
Samsung has installed the S Suggest application on all of its smartphones from the range Galaxy until 2014. In the year the company stopped supporting the application and stopped installing it on devices. So newer phones were safe. However, if you own an older smartphone or tablet, then you may have been at risk. It depends on whether you believe the claims of Samsung or the security researchers.
source: motherboard
