Security News > 2022 > August > Xiaomi Phones with MediaTek Chips Found Vulnerable to Forged Payments

Security flaws have been identified in Xiaomi Redmi Note 9T and Redmi Note 11 models, which could be exploited to disable the mobile payment mechanism and even forge transactions via a rogue Android app installed on the devices.

Specifically, the Israeli cybersecurity firm discovered that a trusted app on a Xiaomi device can be downgraded due to a lack of version control, enabling an attacker to replace a newer, secure version of an app with an older, vulnerable variant.

"Therefore, an attacker can bypass security fixes made by Xiaomi or MediaTek in trusted apps by downgrading them to unpatched versions," Check Point researcher Slava Makkaveev said in a report shared with The Hacker News.

Several vulnerabilities have been identified in "Thhadmin," a trusted app that's responsible for security management, which could be abused by a malicious app to leak stored keys or to execute arbitrary code in the context of the app.

The weaknesses take aim at a trusted app developed by Xiaomi to implement cryptographic operations related to a service called Tencent Soter, which is a "Biometric standard" that functions as an embedded mobile payment framework to authorize transactions on third-party apps using WeChat and Alipay.

A heap overflow vulnerability in the soter trusted app meant that it could be exploited to induce a denial-of-service by an Android app that has no permissions to communicate with the TEE directly.

News URL

https://thehackernews.com/2022/08/xiaomi-phones-with-mediatek-chips-found.html