A few months ago, there was a lot of discussion about a security vulnerability called dirty pipe, which had the potential to infect the popular Android smartphone and any device powered by the Linux operating system. Usually, when we hear such dangerous news, the first reaction is whether I am affected or my smartphone is in danger. And it’s an understandable way of questioning things.
So, we decided to read the entire saga and list out what this nasty pipe vulnerability is, how it affects a device and should you be worried and take some action.
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What is the ‘Dirty Pipe’ vulnerability?
Dirty Pipe is the name of the vulnerability and researcher who found This issue has raised serious concern about it. It is found in Linux kernel version 5.8 or higher. They noticed a serious bug in the operating system that allowed malicious data to be injected into any file, which made it vulnerable to further attacks and potential infiltration by bad actors.
Dirty Pipes uses the way the Linux kernel is able to read, write and process data through something called a ‘pipe’, which explains the name of the vulnerability. And since Linux caters to different files, this problem can cause more damage to the device. As you might know, most of the devices in the market today, including Android smartphones, are built on the Linux kernel.
An attacker can easily bypass the protection and gain root access to modify the system without your permission. All of these put your devices at risk of foreign intrusions, who can tamper with the system either way.
does it affect my android smartphone
Since the vulnerability directly attacks the Linux kernel, Android smartphones carry a certain amount of risk. But the good news is the list of affected smartphones is quite small as the Dirty Pipe vulnerability has been discovered in Linux kernel version 5.8, which is only available if you use a smartphone with Android version 12 or later.
Linux Kernel 5.8 came out in 2020, and according to experts, it only made its way to Android with version 12 released last year. So, keeping that in mind, the risk factor of Android smartphones is limited to a small number.
But if you have a recent phone like Samsung Galaxy S22 series, latest Xiaomi 12 Pro, or Google Pixel 6 lineup, chances are your device is running on infected Linux 5.8 kernel. Luckily, both these companies have addressed the issue and released a fix to patch the Dirty Pipe vulnerability for their smartphones.
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how to check linux kernel version of my smartphone
It is obvious that millions of Android smartphone users would like to check if their device is infected with this problem. And to make it easy, users need to follow these steps to check:
– Go to your phone’s settings
– Click on about phone
– Scroll down to Android/Software Version
– Tap on it to see Linux kernel version
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If the kernel version running in your smartphone is below 5.0 series, then it is not at risk. If the phone’s kernel version is 5 or higher, be sure to check for any updates that may update your device’s version.
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