Researchers find they can use a brute force
attack to crack the PIN in Google Wallet (as demonstrated in a video on
their site, but an attacker would need "root" privileges to do that.
(Credit:
zvelo)
But don't panic. Chances are your Android device isn't rooted; typically only developers and true geeks are willing to root the device, which gives the user full control of the device with "root" privileges, but also removes certain protections.
And someone would have to get physical access to the device and install password cracking software on it to get to the PIN. If someone tries to root a device without the owner's permission, the phone wipes itself of all data, including the PIN, according to Google.
As Google says in this statement:The zvelo study was conducted on their own phone on which they disabled the security mechanisms that protect Google Wallet by rooting the device. To date, there is no known vulnerability that enables someone to take a consumer phone and gain root access while preserving any Wallet information such as the PIN.
Google is working on a fix and in the meantime advises Google Wallet users to not root their phones and to set up a screen lock on the device. Zvelo also recommends disabling USB Debugging and enabling full disk encryption, for the truly paranoid.
This is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Accordingly, it is difficult to figure out when to end it. But then, this is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Period.
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