Horizon Alert
Summary of the vulnerability and why it matters
This vulnerability involves a potential automatic special app access permission assignment in Android's NFC handling, which could allow an attacker to gain elevated privileges without user interaction.
- Special app permissions might be automatically assigned.
- Leadership should remember the risk of elevated privileges.
- Confirm if relevant systems are exposed to this vulnerability.
Attack Path
How an attacker could exploit the issue
An attacker could potentially gain elevated privileges on a device through an insecure default permission assignment in the NFC component. This could occur without any user interaction, allowing for a local privilege escalation.
- No special access required.
- Triggered by the NFC dispatcher.
- Results in local privilege escalation.
Live Threat
Current exploitation, exposure, and threat context
This vulnerability could allow an attacker to assign special app access permissions without user interaction. This could affect system data, user data, and service behavior by granting elevated privileges.
- System data and sensitive information.
- Insecure default value allows privilege escalation.
- Unauthorized access to sensitive system functions.
Operational Fix
Recommended remediation, mitigation, and detection steps
This vulnerability resides within the Android NfcDispatcher, impacting how special app access permissions are handled. Given its local privilege escalation nature without requiring user interaction, ownership likely falls to teams managing Android devices and applications, such as mobile device management (MDM), endpoint security, or application development teams responsible for deployed Android applications. The immediate priority is to identify all Android devices and applications that utilize NFC functionality, confirm their exposure, and assign responsibility for remediation to the accountable owner before planning mitigation strategies.
- Own by Android device and app teams.
- Verify NFC usage and reachability.
- Plan remediation based on risk.
