Chinese hacking team breaks through Google Pixel defences under 60 seconds

Google Pixel, the current flagship launched last month by Google was hacked by a Chinese hacker team under 60 seconds. The team hacked Apple Safari and Adobe Flash along with Google Pixel in the PwnFest in Seoul last week. The white-hat hacker team from Qihoo 360 used an undisclosed security flaw to perform a remote code execution attack and took away $ 1,20,000 cash prize from the company.

The hacking attacks included the team launching Google Play Store before opening Chrome and opening a web page that said “Pwned By 360 Alpha Team”, as reported by The Register . According to Google the bug used in the hacking attack was fixed within 24 hours of the demonstration at the event, and the code changes have made their way to the stable build branch of Google Chrome. This is the second time that the Google Pixel has been compromised in two weeks. Qihoo 360 also breached Adobe Flash which took them four seconds.

The first hack was demonstrated by Keen Team which utilises a zero-day exploit during Mobile Pwn2Own event in Japan. Google has still not managed to fix the zero-day exploit. The Keen Team demonstrated the attack again during the event showing that they can hack all sections of Google Pixel including phone calls, messages, contacts and photos stored on the device.