Mobile & Wireless

Critical Vulnerabilities Patched in Android With June 2021 Security Updates

Google this week announced the availability of the latest monthly security patches for the Android operating system, which address more than 50 vulnerabilities, including several rated critical severity.

Ionut Arghire

June 8, 2021

The most severe of these is a bug in the System component that could be exploited to execute code remotely. Tracked as CVE-2021-0507, the flaw can be exploited using a specially crafted transmission, Google explains.

The bug affects Android 8.1, 9, 10, and 11 iterations, the same as another critical flaw in the System component — CVE-2021-0516 — which could lead to elevation of privileges.

Six other vulnerabilities resolved in the System component — three elevation of privilege and three information disclosure bugs — have a severity rating of high.

All eight flaws were addressed with the 2021-06-01 security patch level, which fixes six other high-risk issues in the mobile platform: one elevation of privilege in Android runtime, one information disclosure in Framework, and four elevation of privilege issues in Media Framework.

The second part of this month’s security update — the 2021-06-05 security patch level — arrives on devices with fixes for 27 vulnerabilities in Framework, System, Kernel components, MediaTek components, Qualcomm components, and Qualcomm closed-source components.

Of these, 24 bugs are considered high severity, while the remaining three are critical flaws. All three were addressed in Qualcomm closed-source components.

All of these vulnerabilities, as well as issues patched with previous security updates, are addressed on devices running a patch level of 2021-06-05 or newer.

This month’s security patches for Google’s Pixel devices are now rolling out with fixes for a total of 43 security holes affecting Android runtime, Framework, Media Framework, System, Kernel components, and Pixel components (Knowles IAXXX adnc driver and Pixel Launcher).

On Pixel devices, a security patch level of 2021-06-05 or later resolves all issues included in Google’s two June 2021 security bulletins (Android and Pixel).

Written By Ionut Arghire

Ionut Arghire is an international correspondent for SecurityWeek.

Latest News

Click to comment

Dealing With the Carcinization of Security

Varied viewpoints as related security concepts take on similar traits create substantial confusion among security teams trying to evaluate and purchase security technologies.

Marc Solomon

Stop, Collaborate and Listen: Disrupting Cybercrime Networks Requires Private-Public Cooperation

No one combatting cybercrime knows everything, but everyone in the battle has some intelligence to contribute to the larger knowledge base.

Derek Manky

How the Atomized Network Changed Enterprise Protection

Our networks have become atomized which, for starters, means they’re highly dispersed. Not just in terms of the infrastructure – legacy, on-premises, hybrid, multi-cloud, and edge.

Matt Wilson

Mapping Threat Intelligence to the NIST Compliance Framework Part 2

How threat intelligence is critical when justifying budget for GRC personnel, and for threat intelligence, incident response, security operations and CISO buyers.

Landon Winkelvoss

Password Dependency: How to Break the Cycle

Hackers rarely hack in anymore. They log in using stolen, weak, default, or otherwise compromised credentials. That’s why it’s so critical to break the password dependency cycle. But how can this be done?

Torsten George