Samsung Galaxy Apps before 4.4.01.7 allows modification of the hostname used for load balancing on installations of applications through a man-in-the-middle attack. An attacker may trick Galaxy Apps into using an arbitrary hostname for which the attacker can provide a valid SSL certificate, and emulate the API of the app store to modify existing apps at installation time. The specific flaw involves an HTTP method to obtain the load-balanced hostname that enforces SSL only after obtaining a hostname from the load balancer, and a missing app signature validation in the application XML. An attacker can exploit this vulnerability to achieve Remote Code Execution on the device. The Samsung ID is SVE-2018-12071.

References

• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-20135
• https://security.samsungmobile.com/securityUpdate.smsb
• https://www.adyta.pt/en/2019/01/29/writeup-samsung-app-store-rce-via-mitm-2