Samsung Galaxy Store App Found Vulnerable to sneaky app installed

Samsung Galaxy Store App Found Vulnerable to Sneaky App Installs and Fraud

Two new vulnerabilities have been found in the Galaxy App Store application allowing local attackers to install arbitrary applications or execute JavaScript by launching a specific web page.

The findings come from cybersecurity experts at NCC Group, who published an advisory about them last Friday.

CVE-2023-21433

“This allows other applications installed on the same Samsung device to automatically install any application available on the Galaxy App Store without the user’s knowledge.”

As for the second vulnerability (tracked CVE-2023-21434 and marked as moderate risk by Samsung), Gannon discovered that a webview within the Galaxy App Store contained a filter that limited the domains that the webview could access.

It was found that the Galaxy App Store has an exported activity which does not handle incoming intents in a safe manner. This allows other applications installed on the same Samsung device to automatically install any application available on the Galaxy App Store without the user’s knowledge.

As NCC explains, this could occur by clicking on a malicious hyperlink in Chrome, or through the use of a pre-installed rogue application on a Samsung device. The proof-of-concept for this vulnerability includes a malicious hyperlink that, when clicked, opens a website with harmful JavaScript and executes it on the target device.