GhostMap Android flaw lets malicious app trigger persistent boot loop

Romanian cybersecurity company Bitdefender discovered an Android flaw dubbed GhostMap that allows a specially crafted app with no permissions to trigger an endless boot loop. The vulnerability stems from two Android libraries interpreting ZIP compression methods differently, causing a SIGBUS error whenever the core system service attempts to read a malformed file. Google reportedly classified the issue as not reproducible and out of scope for a security update, leaving factory resets or ADB deletions as the only methods to stop the crash loop. Open article →