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Understanding Task Hijacking in Android

Updated: Jun 16, 2022

Due to a misconfiguration in their AndroidManifest.xml with their Task Control capabilities, Task Hijacking is a vulnerability that affects applications operating on Android devices.

This allows malware to take control of genuine programmes, steal data from users, and carry out a variety of attacks.

For ex:-

· Attacker can utilise the microphone to listen to the user.

· Attacker can use the camera and take photos

· Attacker can read and send messages

The Promon Security researchers have called this StrandHogg, while the original research report was presented at USENIX in 2015.


Understanding a few key terms

Task: — When doing a job, users engage with a task, which is a set of activities. The activities are organised in a stack (the back stack) in the order that they are opened.

Foreground Activities: — A foreground activity is the activity that is visible on the screen, and its task is known as foreground task. Only one foreground job is shown on the screen at a time.

(Simple Activity Flow)

1. Only Activity 1 is visible in the foreground.

2. Activity 2 begins, pushing Activity 1 to the back of the stack. Activity 2 is now in the Foreground/Front.

3. Activity 3 begins, pushing both Activity 1 and 2 to the back of the stack.

4. When Activity 3 is completed, the preceding action, 2, is automatically brought to the foreground. This is how Android task navigation works.


Android Multitasking- only one task


Launch Modes and Task Affinity

Task Affinity: — The AndroidManifest.xml file defines task affinity as a property in each activity> element. It indicates the Task an Activity chooses to participate in.

Every activity has the same affinity as the package name by default.


Launch Modes: — You may define how a new instance of an activity is related with the current task using launch modes. The activity’s launchmode parameter specifies how the activity should be launched into a task.


There are four launch modes to choose from:

· single top

· standard (default)

· single task

· single instance

When the launchMode is set to singleTask, the Android system considers three options, one of which is the cause for our assault. They’re here –


If an instance of the Activity already exists: -

Instead of establishing a new instance, Android resumes the current one. It signifies that in this mode, the system can only have one activity instance.


If you need to create a new activity instance: -

The Activity Manager Service (AMS) finds a “matched” task from all existing tasks to host the newly formed instance. If they share the same task affinity, an activity “matches” a task. This is why, in our malware/app, attacker’s we may provide the same task affinity as the susceptible app, causing it to run in their job rather than generating its own.


Without finding a “matching” task: -

The AMS generates a new task and makes the newly formed task’s root activity the new activity instance.


EXPLOITATION

The malicious software must be installed on the victim’s smartphone. He must then open it before proceeding to the vulnerable application. The malicious application will then be launched instead of the vulnerable application. If the malicious application uses the same login as the susceptible application, the user will have no way of knowing that his credentials are being used by a malicious application.


REMEDIATION

A easy remedy for this problem is to set taskAffinity=””. If the programme does not want other activities to join tasks that belong to it, the launch mode can be set to singleInstance. To override the default behaviour, a custom onBackPressed() method can be added.


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