Nexus Phones Vulnerable to Hack That Could Reboot Phone At Any Time Remotely

Google's new Nexus smartphone is set to be the company's flagship Android device. However, a new vulnerability has been discovered on the device that affects the way most Nexus smartphones handle Flash SMS.

According to TheDroidGuy, a Flash SMS is a type of message that normally is not stored by the system and does not trigger any audio alerts. In an Android device, it is typically received as a system alert that takes priority over any app by popping on the screen as soon as it is received. The phone's owner will then have the option to dismiss the message or store it after reading it.

A system administrator at Dutch IT services company Levi9 named Bogdan Alecu discovered that if you bombard a nexus device with numerous Flash SMS in rapid succession without dismissing them, the device will eventually reboot on its own. While this isn't a serious security vulnerability, it is something the people behind the Nexus phone would likely want to fix sooner rather than later. This leaves any device vulnerable to rebooting without the owner knowing it unless he or she checks his or her phone or is looking at it at the time of the bombardment.

After about 30 non-dismissed notifications, the phone will begin to act erratically. The most common behavior of the device is to reboot itself, if the device does not reboot itself, it will lose functionality that can only be fixed by rebooting it manually. If a PIN has been set up, the owner will not know that his or her device has been disconnected form the network unless they pick up their phone. During this period, no messages, calls or notifications will be received by the Nexus.

Alecu has been experimenting with the vulnerability for about a year and has confirmed that it is present in the Google Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 phones running carious versions of Android 4.x versions including the latest 4.4 KitKat.