Scientists in Germany have discovered a novel method for bypassing Android's encryption protocol: they tossed their handsets in a freezer, then waited an hour.
Android OS has used Google's data scrambling system since Ice Cream Sandwich, mostly to great effect. News of the new security flaw, however, will probably force the Mountain View-based developer to think twice before attempting to secure a foothold in the Antarctic market.
The researchers found that by plunging the temperature of a Galaxy Nexus smartphone to less than 10 degrees Celsius, then fiddling with the battery a little, they could force the device into a state that allowed them to flash a custom software package onto the device. The software is aptly titled "Frost" — an acronym for Forensic Recovery of Scrambled Telephones.
Freezing hardware to gain root access to privileged data is actually a fairly old trick that's been used to hack desktop computers and laptops for years. The German scientists were surprised, though, to see the process translate seamlessly to a mobile device.
"We thought it would work because smartphones are really small PCs," one of the researchers said. "But we were quite excited that the trick with the freezer worked so well."
The hack works because the frigid temperatures cause data to fade more slowly from RAM memory, which is only intended to store information while it is being accessed, before returning it to the hard drive where encryption protocols keep it safe.
Using Frost, the German team was able to extract contact lists, browser history and even photographs — all without having to unlock the bootloader. Granted, unlocking the bootloader would have been a lot simpler, but way less novel.
It isn't yet known if the trick works on all Android phones, including those running 4.1 Jelly Bean, but one thing is certain: penguin hackers will bring Google to its knees.
