If you haven’t updated your Android phone or iPhone lately, you should do so RIGHT NOW. A bug in the Wi-Fi chip lets hackers take over any of the billions of affected devices. This bug is resolved with the latest updates, so get those updates going before reading on!
What is surprising about finding a vulnerability of this size? Normally, Apple and Google invest millions of dollars to make sure their Operating Systems are as secure as possible. The problem is that they can’t control for those parts produced by third-party companies.
The chip in question that’s causing so much trouble is a Broadcom module that helps the vast majority of current devices connect to Wi-Fi. It’s not a chip created by Apple or Google. They never suspected that it was hiding such a dangerous bug until security researcher Nitay Artensein told them about it.
Artenstein has named this bug Broadpwn. If you don’t have an updated cell phone, a hacker within your Wi-Fi area could not only hack it, but also infect all nearby cell phones. Broadpwn has the potential to create the first Wi-Fi computer bug. A computer bug infects a computer and then spreads to connected PCs.
Though the latest updates resolve Broadpwn, this incident shows that Apple and Google need to be a lot more careful with the security of their cell phones. A similar bug could happen in another popular component of cell phones… and we might not realize it until it’s too late.
Don’t forget to tell your friends to update their cell phones ASAP!
