Android Intent Vulnerabilities
Android Intents enable inter-component and inter-app communication, but insecure intent handling can lead to unauthorized access, data leakage, and privilege escalation attacks.
Android Intents are messaging objects used for communication between components. Vulnerabilities arise from exposed components (activities, services, broadcast receivers), insecure intent filtering, and improper validation. Attackers can exploit these to access protected components, inject malicious data, and perform unauthorized actions.
- Unauthorized access to app components
- Data leakage through intent extras
- Privilege escalation attacks
- Code injection through malicious intents
- Denial of service attacks
- Bypass of authentication and authorization
- Exploiting exported components without proper protection
- Intent injection attacks
- Broadcast receiver manipulation
- Deep link exploitation
- Intent fuzzing and manipulation
- Exploiting implicit intents
- 1
Identify target app and analyze manifest
- 2
Find exported components (activities, services, receivers)
- 3
Test for insecure intent handling
- 4
Craft malicious intents to exploit vulnerabilities
- 5
Inject malicious data through intent extras
- 6
Bypass authentication and access protected components
- Properly configure component exported flags
- Validate and sanitize intent data
- Use explicit intents instead of implicit
- Implement proper permission checks
- Use signature-level permissions for sensitive components
- Validate intent extras and parameters
- Implement intent filtering securely
- Regular security testing and code reviews
- •WhatsApp intent vulnerability (CVE-2019-3568)
- •Chrome browser intent handling vulnerabilities
- •Banking apps exposed through insecure intents
- •Social media apps leaking data through intents