Just weeks after hackers managed to breach iOS 15 security measures and hack an Apple iPhone 13 Pro, now it’s the turn of Samsung’s current flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S21, to feel the hacking heat.
Unfortunately, like the iPhone 13 Pro before it, the Galaxy S21 has been hacked not once but twice. Indeed, within just a few days, hackers were able to demonstrate a total of 61 unique zero-day security flaws across a range of products and make themselves a whopping $1,081,250 in the process. Here’s how it all went down.
Over the weekend of 16-17 October, Chinese hackers taking part in the annual Tianfu Cup hacking challenge were able to bypass Safari security protections and achieve remote code execution on an iPhone 13 Pro running the fully patched iOS 15.0.2 at the time. What’s more, a different team of hackers went on to jailbreak the same flagship device by way of a ‘one-click’ attack.
The Tianfu Cup came about after China’s elite ethical hackers were banned by the Chinese government from taking part in international competitive hacking events where zero-day exploits are demonstrated. Zero-day exploits target a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor and, therefore, cannot be stopped immediately.
The most popular hacking event is Pwn2Own (pronounce the ‘pwn’ bit like the ‘own’ bit, you’re welcome), organized by Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative, ZDI, and held twice a year in North America.
Pwn2Own hackers use exploit chains to hack Samsung Galaxy S21
The latest Pwn2Own event took place in Austin, Texas, between 2-5 November, and it was here that the Samsung Galaxy S21 smartphone fell to hackers. Twice.
It would have been three times, but one of the hacking teams was unable to successfully execute their zero-day exploit in the allotted timeframe.
However, on Wednesday, 3 November, the STARLabs team used an exploit chain to successfully attack the Samsung Galaxy S21. Officially, this was categorized as a ‘collision’ rather than an outright success as that attack chain included a vulnerability that was already known to Samsung rather than being a full zero-day chain.
On Thursday, 4 November, Sam Thomas, director of research at Pentest Limited, was able to get code execution on the Samsung Galaxy S21 using a three-bug chain that earned a full success label. It also earned the Pentest Limited team a $50,000 cash prize. The STARLabs team were awarded $25,000 for their hacking efforts. The successful hackers also get to keep the devices concerned in what ZDI called ‘the shipping of everything pwned to those who owned.’
Considering that this is the second Pwn2Own hacking event this year, if you combine the two, more than $2 million has been awarded. As far as Pwn2Own Austin was concerned, there could be only one winner. Well, two if you count security in general. It was a close call between the top three hacking teams, with STARLabs third on 12 ‘Master of Pwn’ points and a cash haul of $112,500. However, the top two were neck and neck, with DEVCORE in second on 18 points and $180,000 earned, just behind the Synacktiv team with 20 points and $197,500.
When it comes to the ‘Master of …….