A message can hack your phone

Up to 950 million Android devices are vulnerable to a texting hack, according to American security research firm Zimperium.

If a hacker has your phone number, s/he can send a message with the malicious code. The uniqueness here is that it does not require the recipient to open any attachment or click on it—it can be triggered when the device is not being used, and the attacker can automatically delete the infected SMS.

Basically, the user will continue to use the phone, because nothing looks different. But it is essentially a “trojaned phone”, and the hacker can access your data.

Android phones running Android 2.2 or newer versions are vulnerable. Zimperium has given a software “patch” (update) for this vulnerability to Google. But individual phone makers will have to roll out these updates for each device—a time-consuming process that is yet to begin.