According to French blogger Korben, he has managed to come across a potential security exploit that will affect selected smartphones that have Mediatek chipsets inside. Apparently, these affected smartphones do seem to shut down and reset themselves after being on the receiving end of an equals symbol “=” (sans the quotation marks, of course) through a text message.
While this does not so much concern the risk of any kind of data on your smartphone being compromised, but it does make your handset a wee bit more vulnerable when it comes to remote attacks. After all, being spammed non-stop with the equals symbol will logically make the user’s smartphone unusable, not to mention the inconvenience of such a text message causing havoc on your daily communications while you are in the midst of a phone call.
If you want to find out whether your very own Mediatek-based smartphone is prone to such a compromise, then message an equals symbol to yourself. The solution is pretty simple – download an alternative messaging app that will be able to handle SMS messages instead of the stock messaging app that arrived with the phone.
The following is not an exhaustive list of affected handsets, but at least you have somewhere to begin at. They include the Wiko Darkmoon, Wiko Dark Side, Wiko Darknight, Wiko Iggy, Wiko Ozzy, Wiko Darfull, Wiko Cink King, Wiko Cink Five, Wiko Cink Peax, Wiko Cink Peax 2, Wiko Cink Slim, Alcatel One Touch Idol X, Alcatel One Touch Idol Ultra, Alcatel One Touch 997D, Alcatel One Touch Pop C3 (4033D), Alcatel One Touch S-Pop (4030D), Alcaltel One Touch Star (6010D), Zopo ZP950, Acer Liquid E 2 DUO, Fairphone, and the Archos 40 Titanium.
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