![\"All-new](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/All-new-Kindle.png\")
<\/p>\nAn investigation by Check Point Research has found that a security vulnerability in Amazon’s Kindle e-reader could have allowed attackers to take over devices using maliciously crafted e-books.<\/p>\n
The cyber threat intelligence firm converted an ebook into malware that could lock users out of their devices and steal personal information, including billing details.<\/p>\n
“A malicious book can be published and made available for free access in any virtual library, including the Kindle Store, via the ‘self-publishing’ service, or sent directly to the end-user device via the Amazon ‘send to kindle’ service,” Check Point research Slava Makkaveev explained.<\/p>\n
According to Makkaveev, anti-virus software does not currently have signatures for e-books, which means it cannot pick up when these files have been modified with malicious code.<\/p>\n
“While you might not be happy with the writing in a particular book, nobody expects to download one that is malicious. No such scenarios have been publicised,” Makkaveev said.<\/p>\n
Check Point’s proof-of-concept e-book was able to execute a hidden code with root rights.<\/p>\n
Once the user clicks on the e-book, a remote server is connected to their device and locks the screen.<\/p>\n
The malware then establishes root access, providing the attacker access to the user’s Amazon account, private keys, and cookies.<\/p>\n
In addition, the attacker could delete e-books and convert Kindles into bots that can attack other devices in local networks.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Head of cyber research at Check Point, Yani Balmas, told Threat Post<\/strong><\/a> what was alarming about the vulnerability was the degree of victim specificity it could exploit.<\/p>\n For example, an attacker interested in targeting a particular country could reprint a popular title translated in that country’s language to gain easy access to victims.<\/p>\n \u201cThat degree of specificity in offensive attack capabilities is very sought-after in the cybercrime and cyber-espionage world,\u201d Balmas said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the wrong hands, those offensive capabilities could do some serious damage, which concerned us immensely.\u201d<\/p>\n Check Point reported the issues to Amazon in February 2021, and the company fixed the bug with Kindle firmware update 5.13.5, which was rolled out in April 2021.<\/p>\n Kindle patches are automatically downloaded and applied whenever a device is connected to the Internet.<\/p>\n There was no way to confirm whether attackers exploited the vulnerability before the update was implemented, however.<\/p>\n A security bug in Amazon’s Kindle e-reader could have allowed attackers to take over users’ devices using malicious e-books. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":303034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[723,69078,5276,10556,43302,851,71386,71384],"class_list":["post-409164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-amazon","tag-check-point-research","tag-cyber-security","tag-ebooks","tag-ereaders","tag-kindle","tag-slava-makkaveev","tag-yani-balmas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409164"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":409194,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409164\/revisions\/409194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Now read: Beware these WhatsApp scams that steal your money<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"