Android 17 Advanced Protection Locks Accessibility Services to Verified Accessibility Tools
Google has announced a new security measure that limits access to Android's accessibility services to verified applications classified as Accessibility Tools when Advanced Protection is enabled.
Google has announced a new security measure that limits access to Android's accessibility services to verified applications classified as Accessibility Tools when Advanced Protection is enabled.
With malicious Android applications abusing the API serving as the main conduit for malware and financial fraud, the tech giant said the move would block a major attack pathway.
Advanced Protection is a security setting that turns on all Android's security features to secure the device against potential threats.
"If you already use Advanced Protection, you will see a notification once these new capabilities arrive on your device.
To take advantage of the new forensic capabilities, navigate to your Advanced Protection settings page and manually enable Intrusion Logging."
The Android AccessibilityService API is a powerful framework that allows an application to run in the background, intercept user interface events, and interact with other applications on the user's behalf.
Although its primary purpose is to assist users with disabilities, such as through screen readers or voice control systems, its privileged access has been abused by banking trojans and spyware to extract sensitive data and perform malicious actions without needing root access.
Put differently, once a user is tricked into enabling the service under a social engineering pretext, the malware can turn genuine assistive features into potent cyber weapons to programmatically initiate fraudulent fund transfers from installed financial apps, log keystrokes, draw fake login screens over legitimate apps, and grant itself additional sensitive permissions.
In recent years, Google has taken a number of steps to counter this abuse - Alongside AccessibilityService API protection, Android 17 also brings a number of other security improvements - Google said.
What happened
Google has announced a new security measure that limits access to Android's accessibility services to verified applications classified as Accessibility Tools when Advanced Protection is enabled.
With malicious Android applications abusing the API serving as the main conduit for malware and financial fraud, the tech giant said the move would block a major attack pathway.
Advanced Protection is a security setting that turns on all Android's security features to secure the device against potential threats.
What changed
"If you already use Advanced Protection, you will see a notification once these new capabilities arrive on your device.
To take advantage of the new forensic capabilities, navigate to your Advanced Protection settings page and manually enable Intrusion Logging."
Who is affected
The Android AccessibilityService API is a powerful framework that allows an application to run in the background, intercept user interface events, and interact with other applications on the user's behalf.
Although its primary purpose is to assist users with disabilities, such as through screen readers or voice control systems, its privileged access has been abused by banking trojans and spyware to extract sensitive data and perform malicious actions without needing root access.
Why it matters
Put differently, once a user is tricked into enabling the service under a social engineering pretext, the malware can turn genuine assistive features into potent cyber weapons to programmatically initiate fraudulent fund transfers from installed financial apps, log keystrokes, draw fake login screens over legitimate apps, and grant itself additional sensitive permissions.
In recent years, Google has taken a number of steps to counter this abuse - Alongside AccessibilityService API protection, Android 17 also brings a number of other security improvements - Google said.
Attribution
The Hacker News: Google has announced a new security measure that limits access to Android's accessibility services to verified applications classified as Accessibility Tools when Advanced Protection is enabled.