Mobile security expert Riley Hassell has said that he and his team would not disclose new research on vulnerabilities in Google’s Android OS as they fear it could trigger "mayhem" among users.
Security firm Privateer Labs founder Hassell had made it into the news last week after he called off an appearance at Black Hat hacking conference in Las Vegas.
Hassell told Reuters that the research that he and Shane Macaulay have worked on could be easily exploited by cyber criminals to hack Android phones. He said that there are over dozen popular Android apps that could be used by hackers to control Android phones remotelly.
"App developers frequently fail to follow security guidelines and write applications properly," he told Reuters.
"Some apps expose themselves to outside contact. If these apps are vulnerable, then an attacker can remotely compromise that app and potentially the phone using something as simple as a text message."
Hassell refused to name the apps.
"When you release a threat and there’s no patch ready, then there is mayhem," said Hassell.
Hassell added that Google had been alerted about the vulnerabilities.
However, Google has said that its security experts found that the "identified bugs are not present in Android."
Hassell also said that they had called off the appearance at the conference as they needed to make sure that previous work done on the subject had not been replicated.
