Just out of curiosity does anyone know if any android devices can be affected by a fork bomb sent via text or email?
Android Fork Bomb
- Thread starter Spacegrass
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If a text or email could execute a custom script on being received, there is probably a lot worse that it could do than a fork bomb... Might be possible to get two views to keep calling each other, in which case the bundle for that program will expand until it runs out of memory and android will kill the app. This is very much an app specific bug though, and isn't related to the "fork bomb" of a program making a new instance of itself.
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I thought Android runs on the sandbox environment for applications, which means the app can't execute much permissions as compared to Windows.
Just my $0.02
Just my $0.02
Yes, the apps are sandboxed for the most part.
Now that I think on it, there is a launch flag to open a new instance of a program leaving any currently running ones alone, which could be used to make a forkbomb. In this case, it would not be stopped by memory as the earlier instances will shut down but the exponentially increasing new instances will keep going, probably making the phone unusable until a reboot.
This can only be done by compiling and launching a signed app though, no email client can do this unless it has a backdoor to trigger this code from itself or from a trojan-esque feature to download, install, and launch apps on its own. The user would be promted to ok the new app's permissions anyway, unless it uses and gets permission for root access.
Basically, forkbombs are possible, but not by email or text with stock or nonmalacious programs.
Now that I think on it, there is a launch flag to open a new instance of a program leaving any currently running ones alone, which could be used to make a forkbomb. In this case, it would not be stopped by memory as the earlier instances will shut down but the exponentially increasing new instances will keep going, probably making the phone unusable until a reboot.
This can only be done by compiling and launching a signed app though, no email client can do this unless it has a backdoor to trigger this code from itself or from a trojan-esque feature to download, install, and launch apps on its own. The user would be promted to ok the new app's permissions anyway, unless it uses and gets permission for root access.
Basically, forkbombs are possible, but not by email or text with stock or nonmalacious programs.
Task Management
If the script gained root access, it'd be just the same as on a Linux machine. But I believe the DalvikVM simply kills any apps/processes it needs to in order to keep the system running smoothly (in theory).
If the script gained root access, it'd be just the same as on a Linux machine. But I believe the DalvikVM simply kills any apps/processes it needs to in order to keep the system running smoothly (in theory).
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