Android Task Hijacking

Background

There are four different Launch Modes:

1. standard

2. singleTop

3. singleTask

4. singleInstance

For the attack described here, we are mostly concerned with the “singleTask” mode.

One of the possibility with “singleTask” activity is it allows other activities to be part of its task. It’s always at the root of its task, but other activities (necessarily “standard” and “singleTop” activities) can be launched into that task.

Task affinity is an attribute that is defined in each <activity> tag in the AndroidManifest.xml file. It describes which Task an Activity prefers to join. By default, every activity has the same affinity as the package name.

Grep for singletask to check if Vulnerability exists

apktool d com.example.app
cd com.example.app

grep -r singleTask .                                                                                  

If we find the activity whose launchMode is set to singleTask then we can hijack the task as it is vulnerable.

Attack and POC

We need to create a malicious application to exploit this vulnerability

You can import the below POC in your Android Studio projects and replace the package name with you desired Victim Application package name in AndroidManifest.xml as follows:

android:taskAffinity="com.example. VICTIMAPPPackage"

https://github.com/smhuda/android-task-hijacking

Now save and run the project, Android Studio will install and run the application on the Android device physially connected to your machine.

If you prefer an APK you can follow the step in the screenshots below to build an APK to install on another device or emulator:

• Now, when the user opens the attacker’s app. it immediately minimises the task.

• It will not be shown in the recent apps as well.

• After that, when the user opens the victim app and presses the back button, instead of being taken to home screen. he is taken to the attacker’s application.

Thanks to the taskAffinity mentioned by the attackers app which is set to the victims app.

Task hijacking is also known as StrandHogg vulnerability.

Remediation

• Set the launchMode to singleInstance which will prevent other activities from becoming a part of it’s task.

• A custom onBackPressed() function can also be added, to override the default behaviour.

• Setting taskAffinity="" can be a quick fix for this issue.

Finding Write Up

Insecure service configuration - Task Hijacking | Fluid Attacks Documentation