CAPEC-501

Detailed Abstraction Level
Meta — Very abstract, high-level category
Standard — Specific enough to understand
Detailed — Tied to specific technique Draft MITRE CAPEC Status
Stable — Fully reviewed and complete
Draft — Under development
Incomplete — Partially defined
Deprecated — No longer recommended
Obsolete — Replaced by another CAPEC Severity: Medium
Android Activity Hijack

Description

An adversary intercepts an implicit intent sent to launch a Android-based trusted activity and instead launches a counterfeit activity in its place. The malicious activity is then used to mimic the trusted activity's user interface and prompt the target to enter sensitive data as if they were interacting with the trusted activity.

Prerequisites

The adversary must have previously installed the malicious application onto the Android device that will run in place of the trusted activity.

Mitigations

To mitigate this type of an attack, explicit intents should be used whenever sensitive data is being sent. An 'explicit intent' is delivered to a specific application as declared within the intent, whereas an 'implicit intent' is directed to an application as defined by the Android operating system. If an implicit intent must be used, then it should be assumed that the intent will be received by an unknown application and any response should be treated accordingly (i.e., with appropriate security controls).

Never use implicit intents for inter-application communication.

Skills Required

[High] The adversary must typically overcome network and host defenses in order to place malware on the system.