Potentially dangerous future in UC browser puts Hundreds of millions of Android users under high risk that allows hackers to hijack Android devices via Man-in-the-Middle Attacks.
A hidden future that uncovered in UC browsers let attackers download and run untested code in any of the Android devices and also its bypass the Google Play servers by downloading the auxiliary software modules.
UC browsers is a most papular browser in Android platform with more than 500 million downloads from the Google Play store alone, and this new dangerous future let all the downloaded users vulnerable to MITM attacks.
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This untrusted UC browser function completely violates the Google play store policies, and it allows to download the malicious code to Android devices.
Based on the strict Google Play Store policy, any applications downloaded from Google Play and any software components from third-party sources cannot change their own code.
In this case, researchers from Dr.Web tested the application by download the executable Linux library from the remote server (not malicious) into the browser and launched it for execution, thus, the browser successfully executes the code.
Man-in-the-Middle Attack with UC Browser
UC browser makes a request to the management server and receives the link whenever it needs to download a new plug-in.
In this case, UC browser request to the server to establishes the communication over untrusted HTTP protocol instead of encrypted HTTPS which leads to attackers directly perform a Man-in-the-MIddle Attack.
According to Dr.Web research, Attackers can replace incoming commands by pointing to the address of a malicious resource. As a result, the program downloads new modules from it, and not from the present managing server. Since UC Browser works with unsigned plugins, it will launch malicious modules without any verification.
If this MITM attack successfully obtained by the attacker, then it leads to spreading malicious plug-ins through UC Browser that can perform a wide variety of actions including to steal usernames, passwords, information on bank cards and other personal data.
This Dangerous function uncovered in both UC Browser and UC Mini, But the MITM attack will not work in the UC Browser Mini.
This serious flow already reported to Google, but still, both Browsers are available to download with this dangerous function. Users urged to un-install now until they fix this issue.
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