New Security Flaw Puts More Than 1 Billion Smartphone Users at Risk

Security researchers from Check Point Software have discovered a critical vulnerability in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips that affects about 40% of all Smartphones in the world. With over 3 billion smartphone users worldwide, this puts quite a large number of people at risk. The researchers are calling this exploit “Achilles”.

The team was able to find more than 400 lines of code vulnerabilities in digital signal processors found on Qualcomm chips. The details of this exploit are being kept confidential to minimize the risk of someone taking advantage of them.

It was discovered that attackers can use Achilles to turn someone’s phone into a spying tool without any user interaction. They can also leave the mobile device completely unresponsive and the malicious code can completely hide their activities and become unremovable.

The researchers were quick to warn Qualcomm about the vulnerability and the chipmaker has already started updating the drivers and codes. The updates will become available to vendors soon who will push updates to the phones as soon as possible.

On the bright side, the researchers have said that it is highly unlikely that anyone has used this exploit and there is no evidence of anyone doing so either. They added that as long as you download apps and software from trusted sources, you should be okay.