Android devices could be hacked by playing a video due to CVE-2019-2107 flaw

Watch out! Playing a video on Android devices could be a dangerous operation due to a critical CVE-2019-2107 RCE flaw in Android OS between version 7.0 and 9.0.

Playing a specially-crafted video on devices with the Android’s native video player application could allow attackers to compromise them due to a dangerous critical remote code execution flaw. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-2107, affected Android OS between version 7.0 and 9.0 (Nougat, Oreo, or Pie) potentially impacting over 1 billion devices.

The RCE flaw CVE-2019-2107 resides in the Android media framework.

Google already addressed the flaw with July 2019 Android Security Bulletin, but millions of devices still waiting for the patch to be released by their manufacturers.

“The most severe vulnerability in this section [media framework] could enable a remote attacker using a specially crafted file to execute arbitrary code within the context of a privileged process,” reads the security advisory.

The Android developer Marcin Kozlowski has also published a proof-of-concept code to exploit this flaw.

The PoC code, an HEVC encoded video, could allow an attacker to crash the media player. Potentially an attacker could develop an exploit to remotely execute arbitrary code.

However, it should be noted that if such malicious videos are received through an instant messaging app like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger or uploaded on a service like YouTube or Twitter, the attack won’t work.

“CVE-2019-2107 – looks scary. Still remember Stagefright and PNG bugs vulns …. With CVE-2019-2107 the decoder/codec runs under mediacodec user and with properly “crafted” video (with tiles enabled – ps_pps->i1_tiles_enabled_flag) you can possibly do RCE. The codec affected is HVEC (a.k.a H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2)” wrote Kozlowski.

To prevent the exploitation of this flaw, users have to update their Android versions by applying the latest security patches. Of course, they have to avoid downloading and playing videos from untrusted sources

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – CVE-2019-2107, Android)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.