Computer scientists say they have discovered a weakness in smartphones running Google’s Android operating system that allows attackers to secretly record phone conversations, monitor geographic location data, and access other sensitive resources.

Computer scientists say they have discovered a weakness in smartphones running Google’s Android operating system that allows attackers to secretly record phone conversations, monitor geographic location data, and access other sensitive resources.

Handsets sold by HTC, Samsung, Motorola and Google contain code that expose powerful capabilities to untrusted apps, scientists from North Carolina State University said. These “explicit capability leaks” are said to bypass key security defences built into Android by Google.

The researchers said Google and its Motorola subsidiary have confirmed the vulnerabilities in their handsets, but that HTC and Samsung “have been really slow in responding to, if not ignoring, our reports/inquiries.”