Google releases February 2017 Android Security Bulletin and Google Device Images

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Google has released the February 2017 Android Security Bulletin. Partners have had access to the warnings in this month’s bulletin since January 3, 2017 or earlier.

 

The February bulletin has two security patch levels to provide Android partners with the flexibility to more quickly fix a subset of vulnerabilities that are similar across all Android devices.

2017-02-01: Partial security patch level string. This security patch level string indicates that all issues associated with 2017-02-01 (and all previous security patch level strings) are addressed.

2017-02-05: Complete security patch level string. This security patch level string indicates that all issues associated with 2017-02-01 and 2017-02-05 (and all previous security patch level strings) are addressed.

 

Supported Google devices will receive a single OTA update with the February 05, 2017 security patch level

The most severe of these issues is a Critical security vulnerability that could enable remote code execution on an affected device through multiple methods such as email, web browsing, and MMS when processing media files.

 

 

Alongside the bulletin, Google have released a security update to Google devices through an over-the-air (OTA) update. The Google device firmware images have also been released to the Google Developer site. Security patch levels of February 05, 2017 or later address all of these issues.

 

 

The tables below contains a list of security vulnerabilities, the Common Vulnerability and Exposures ID (CVE), the assessed severity, and whether or not Google devices are affected. The severity assessment is based on the effect that exploiting the vulnerability would possibly have on an affected device, assuming the platform and service mitigations are disabled for development purposes or if successfully bypassed.

 

 

Security patch levels of 2017-02-01 or later must address the following issues.

Issue	CVE	Severity	Affects Google devices?
Remote code execution vulnerability in Surfaceflinger	CVE-2017-0405	Critical	Yes
Remote code execution vulnerability in Mediaserver	CVE-2017-0406, CVE-2017-0407	Critical	Yes
Remote code execution vulnerability in libgdx	CVE-2017-0408	High	Yes
Remote code execution vulnerability in libstagefright	CVE-2017-0409	High	Yes
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in Java.Net	CVE-2016-5552	High	Yes
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in Framework APIs	CVE-2017-0410, CVE-2017-0411, CVE-2017-0412	High	Yes
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in Mediaserver	CVE-2017-0415	High	Yes
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in Audioserver	CVE-2017-0416, CVE-2017-0417, CVE-2017-0418, CVE-2017-0419	High	Yes
Information disclosure vulnerability in AOSP Mail	CVE-2017-0420	High	Yes
Information disclosure vulnerability in AOSP Messaging	CVE-2017-0413, CVE-2017-0414	High	Yes
Information disclosure vulnerability in Framework APIs	CVE-2017-0421	High	Yes
Denial of service vulnerability in Bionic DNS	CVE-2017-0422	High	Yes
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in Bluetooth	CVE-2017-0423	Moderate	Yes
Information disclosure vulnerability in AOSP Messaging	CVE-2017-0424	Moderate	Yes
Information disclosure vulnerability in Audioserver	CVE-2017-0425	Moderate	Yes
Information disclosure vulnerability in Filesystem	CVE-2017-0426	Moderate	Yes

Security patch levels of 2017-02-05 or later must address all of the 2017-01-01 issues, as well as the following issues.

Issue	CVE	Severity	Affects Google devices?
Remote code execution vulnerability in Qualcomm crypto driver	CVE-2016-8418	Critical	No*
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in kernel file system	CVE-2017-0427	Critical	Yes
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in NVIDIA GPU driver	CVE-2017-0428, CVE-2017-0429	Critical	Yes
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in kernel networking subsystem	CVE-2014-9914	Critical	Yes
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in Broadcom Wi-Fi driver	CVE-2017-0430	Critical	Yes
Vulnerabilities in Qualcomm components	CVE-2017-0431	Critical	No*
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in MediaTek driver	CVE-2017-0432	High	No*
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in Synaptics touchscreen driver	CVE-2017-0433, CVE-2017-0434	High	Yes
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in Qualcomm Secure Execution Environment Communicator driver	CVE-2016-8480	High	Yes
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in Qualcomm sound driver	CVE-2016-8481, CVE-2017-0435, CVE-2017-0436	High	Yes
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in Qualcomm Wi-Fi driver	CVE-2017-0437, CVE-2017-0438, CVE-2017-0439, CVE-2016-8419, CVE-2016-8420, CVE-2016-8421, CVE-2017-0440, CVE-2017-0441, CVE-2017-0442, CVE-2017-0443, CVE-2016-8476	High	Yes
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in Realtek sound driver	CVE-2017-0444	High	Yes
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in HTC touchscreen driver	CVE-2017-0445, CVE-2017-0446, CVE-2017-0447	High	Yes
Information disclosure vulnerability in NVIDIA video driver	CVE-2017-0448	High	Yes
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in Broadcom Wi-Fi driver	CVE-2017-0449	Moderate	Yes
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in Audioserver	CVE-2017-0450	Moderate	Yes
Elevation of privilege vulnerability in kernel file system	CVE-2016-10044	Moderate	Yes
Information disclosure vulnerability in Qualcomm Secure Execution Environment Communicator	CVE-2016-8414	Moderate	Yes
Information disclosure vulnerability in Qualcomm sound driver	CVE-2017-0451	Moderate	Yes

Android and Google Service Mitigations

This is a summary of the mitigations provided by the Android security platform and service protections, such as SafetyNet. These capabilities reduce the likelihood that security vulnerabilities could be successfully exploited on Android.

 

 

• Exploitation for many issues on Android is made more difficult by enhancements in newer versions of the Android platform. We encourage all users to update to the latest version of Android where possible.
• The Android Security team actively monitors for abuse with Verify Apps and SafetyNet, which are designed to warn users about Potentially Harmful Applications. Verify Apps is enabled by default on devices with Google Mobile Services and is especially important for users who install applications from outside of Google Play. Device rooting tools are prohibited within Google Play, but Verify Apps warns users when they attempt to install a detected rooting application—no matter where it comes from. Additionally, Verify Apps attempts to identify and block installation of known malicious applications that exploit a privilege escalation vulnerability. If such an application has already been installed, Verify Apps will notify the user and attempt to remove the detected application.
• As appropriate, Google Hangouts and Messenger applications do not automatically pass media to processes such as Mediaserver.

 

Full details of the February 2017 Android Security Bulletin is available here.

 

By Rapid John

http://rapidmobile.biz/devices-and/google-releases-february-2017-android-security-bulletin-and-google-device-images/