| Name |
Intent Spoof |
|
| Likelyhood of attack |
Typical severity |
| Medium |
Medium |
|
| Summary |
An adversary, through a previously installed malicious application, issues an intent directed toward a specific trusted application's component in an attempt to achieve a variety of different objectives including modification of data, information disclosure, and data injection. Components that have been unintentionally exported and made public are subject to this type of an attack. If the component trusts the intent's action without verififcation, then the target application performs the functionality at the adversary's request, helping the adversary achieve the desired negative technical impact. |
| Prerequisites |
An adversary must be able install a purpose built malicious application onto the Android device and convince the user to execute it. The malicious application will be used to issue spoofed intents. |
| Solutions | To limit one's exposure to this type of attack, developers should avoid exporting components unless the component is specifically designed to handle requests from untrusted applications. Developers should be aware that declaring an intent filter will automatically export the component, exposing it to public access. Critical, state-changing actions should not be placed in exported components. If a single component handles both inter- and intra-application requests, the developer should consider dividing that component into separate components. If a component must be exported (e.g., to receive system broadcasts), then the component should dynamically check the caller's identity prior to performing any operations. Requiring Signature or SignatureOrSystem permissions is an effective way of limiting a component's exposure to a set of trusted applications. Finally, the return values of exported components can also leak private data, so developers should check the caller's identity prior to returning sensitive values. |
| Related Weaknesses |
|
CWE ID
|
Description
|
| CWE-284 |
Improper Access Control |
|
| Related CAPECS |
|
CAPEC ID
|
Description
|
| CAPEC-148 |
An adversary modifies content to make it contain something other than what the original content producer intended while keeping the apparent source of the content unchanged. The term content spoofing is most often used to describe modification of web pages hosted by a target to display the adversary's content instead of the owner's content. However, any content can be spoofed, including the content of email messages, file transfers, or the content of other network communication protocols. Content can be modified at the source (e.g. modifying the source file for a web page) or in transit (e.g. intercepting and modifying a message between the sender and recipient). Usually, the adversary will attempt to hide the fact that the content has been modified, but in some cases, such as with web site defacement, this is not necessary. Content Spoofing can lead to malware exposure, financial fraud (if the content governs financial transactions), privacy violations, and other unwanted outcomes. |
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