HTC confirms hole in its Android phones
HTC on Tuesday confirmed a gaping vulnerability in its Android phones that could be exploited by a third-party to steal personal information from users.
The company said it was not aware of any customers yet impacted by the flaw, but that it was "diligently" working on a fix.
"Following a short testing period by our carrier partners, the patch will be sent over-the-air to customers, who will be notified to download and install it," the statement said.
The flaw, affecting several HTC Android smartphone models, was discovered by researcher Trevor Eckhart, who alerted the company about it on Sept. 24 and received no response for five days before going public with the issue on Friday, according to the blog AndroidPolice, which first reported the news.
The bug stems from a recently added program, HTCLoggers.apk, which logs large amounts of information from the phones, according to Eckhart. The program enables any third-party app that requests permission to connect to the web to easily access data that has been logged. This information includes user accounts, email addresses, GPS locations, SMS data, phone numbers and system logs.
HTC Android phones, including the EVO 3D, EVO 4G and Thunderbolt, among others, are affected, Eckhart said.In its statement, HTC advised customers to "use caution when downloading, using, installing and updating applications from untrusted sources."
