Qualcomm is the biggest smartphone chip manufacturer in the world. So when they mess up, pretty much everyone is affected. And that's exactly what's happened right now, thanks to two new bugs affecting a number of Android smartphones on the market.
Collectively called QualPwn, the two vulnerabilities "allow attackers to compromise the Android Kernel over-the-air," according to Tencent Blade, the Chinese tech giant's cyber-security division.
Over-the-air means it's not a completely remote attack, basically translating to not being able to affect you over the Internet. Instead, the attacker in this case needs to be on the same Wi-Fi connection as you, so that's one small relief.
It consists of the CVE-2019-10538 bug and the CVE-2019-10540. The former can be used to send customized data packets to a device's WLAN interface, giving the attacker root privileges. The latter is a glitch in Qualcomm's WLAN and modem firmware shipped with its chips that can be used to send data packets to the smartphon¨¦s modem, letting them run code of their choice.
In either case though, QualPwn attacks don't need you to interact in any way to succeed, like clicking on a malware-laden link. As long as your attacker has access to the same Wi-Fi as you, there's no way to stop it.
Right now, this affects phones with Qualcomm's most popular Snapdragon chips like the 855, 845, 730, 710, 675. That means at least 34 Android smartphones on the market are affected:
OnePlus 6, OnePlus 6T, OnePlus 7, OnePlus 7 Pro,?
Oppo Reno, R17 Pro
Asus Zenfone 5Z, Zenfone 6Z, Max Pro M1, Max Pro M2
Nubia Red Magic 3
Black Shark 2
Redmi K20, K20 Pro, Redmi Note 5 Pro, Redmi Note 7 Pro, Redmi 6 Pro,?
Google Pixel 3, Pixel 3XL, Pixel 3A, Pixel 3A XL
Realme X
Xiaomi Poco F1, Mi A2
Nokia 6.1 Plus, Nokia 8 Sirocco, Nokia 8.1
Vivo Z1 Pro, Nex, V15 Pro,?
LG V30+, G7 ThinQ
Samsung A70, M40
Luckily, the first issue has been patched in the latest Android update, but you need to download it immediately. The second was patched in a code fix by Qualcomm.
At the very least, Tencent Blade said they discovered the bugs on their own, and that they haven't seen any public exploitation attempts.