back to article This is not a drill: Hackers pop stock Nexus 6P in five minutes

The Nexus 6P appears to have been hacked with attackers at the Mobile Pwn2Own contest installing malware without user interaction in less than five minutes. The hack by China's Keen Team happened minutes ago at the Tokyo event and does not require users to do anything. It is as of the time of writing yet to be confirmed but …

  1. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    10^77 years...

    ...Or five minutes, whichever comes first.

    1. MrDamage Silver badge

      Re: 10^77 years...

      That's because being able to successfully hack the device on your first attempt is a million-to-one long shot.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 10^77 years...

        "That's because being able to successfully hack the device on your first attempt is a million-to-one long shot."

        I thought that was the chances of anything coming from Mars?

      2. drand

        Re: 10^77 years...

        "

        That's because being able to successfully hack the device on your first attempt is a million-to-one long shot.

        "

        and everyone knows that million-to-one chances come good nine times out of ten [Terry Pratchett].

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: 10^77 years...

          "and everyone knows that million-to-one chances come good nine times out of ten "

          Many years ago a colleague added a diagnostic routine to the mainframe OS. He saw there was a "turning the corner" condition that would produce an erroneous message on the operators' console. As it was in the order of "one in a million" - he did not see it as a problem and a quick test seemed to go ok.

          The first morning it went into the live system the operators quickly complained about the recurring message. With hindsight it was realised that the number of times the diagnostic code was entered in normal operations meant that the "one in a million" case would occur very often.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yawn

    Nowhere in that did I read the requirement of the device being upto date on patches. I suspect like most other nonsense, it will turn out to be running a 18 month old build or some other nonsense.

    Unless it's running October 2016 security patch, Franky not interested...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yawn

      If you were going to give away £21k for a hacking competition, wouldn't you at least spend five minutes upgrading the firmware first?

    2. Doogie Howser MD

      Re: Yawn

      "Franky not interested. Franky say relax!"

    3. Fuzz

      Re: Yawn

      It's not mentioned in the reg article but the Trend blog clearly states the devices will be fully patched.

      http://blog.trendmicro.com/presenting-mobile-pwn2own-2016/

    4. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      Re: Yawn

      An AC called Franky offered "Unless it's running October 2016 security patch, Franky not interested..."

      Why? Why are you using some bizarre reverse-inductive logic?

      "The Sun has 'come up' every morning for billions of years, but today's the day when that long streak ends." EQUALS "All previous versions have proven to have been insecure, but starting in the month of October, in the year of our Lord 2016, the end is nigh. Uncrackable security has arrived."

      The contest will probably run again next year. And the year after that. Etc.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Yawn

        I think the point was, like most of these security scare stories, when you drill into the detail, it always looks less impressive. The fact they don't mention the patch level, suggests this is a fix.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Yawn

          Why the heck would they offer a $100K prize if they let you use an outdated version, so you could use code for existing exploits? The whole point is demonstrating novel hacks, not using ones that Google already fixed!

  3. Lotaresco

    Say whaat?

    "Each team under the contest rules has five minutes, over three attempts for a total of 20 minutes to pop devices."

    Someone's arithmetic seems to be off by 33.3333...%

    1. Justicesays
      Devil

      Re: Say whaat?

      The first thing they hacked was the clock and/or calculator...

      1. Alistair
        Coat

        Re: Say whaat?

        urrr ... Perhaps Darren P.s Phone was hacked......

    2. Jeffrey Nonken

      Re: Say whaat?

      I took that to mean that the clock didn't start immediately on the next attempt, but they had some time between attempts to consult their notes, tweak their tools and gird their loins. That amount of time is variable.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    iPhone broken too

    similar time, no sensationalist stories....

    "12:00 Attempt #2 – Tencent Keen Security Lab Team targeting Apple iPhone 6S with a rogue application installation.

    — Potential payout (excluding Master of Pwn points): $125,000 USD"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: iPhone broken too

      The iPhone one required some user interaction: browsing a rogue site that was able to force the install of a rogue application, but that install didn't persist after a reboot so they didn't get the full payout. The Nexus was hacked via text message, and didn't require the phone to even be touched.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: iPhone broken too

        the iphone exploit that didn't survive a reboot is a SECOND exploit. both the Iphone and Nexus were remote hacked without intervention. Read the blog.

        also a webpage that can deliver an explot is far more dangerous than text message. It's easy to shutdown a malious sender of texts, but you can infect lots of phones very quickly from a webpage

  5. DryBones

    Inquiring Minds Want to Know

    Auto-Retrieve MMS, off or on?

    Android MediaStage, code contributed by Adobe or not?

  6. Vendicar Decarian1

    Isn't it time to admit that the LinTard OS is the least secure OS in the world, and that the developers will be patching the OS for the next 1000 years and it still won't be an insecure Piece of Shit?

    Rip it up, and start over.

    Rip it up, banish all of the LinTard Fanboys, hire some adults and get on with the job of producing a secure system that isn't a UniTard abomination.

    1. KjetilS

      Weak trolling. Must try harder.

    2. HieronymusBloggs

      "hire some adults"

      Advice for others or personal resolution?

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