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Google ships WannaCrypt for Android, disguised as Samba app

Who thought SMBv1 was a good idea? Come on, fess up

Perhaps noticing the popularity of Samba apps for Android, Google's decided to plant its own flag in the space, and yesterday released its official Android Samba Client.

It landed on Google Play here, and almost immediately users noticed something worrying. It only supports SMBv1 shares.

SMBv1 is known to be exploitable (WannaCrypt and NotPetya both leveraged insecure SMBv1 shares to infect vulnerable Windows machines).

Last year, Redmond's Ned Pyle put it simply: Stop using SMBv1.

This made Google's decision so odd, The Register wondered if the app were faking the Google brand, but no: the source code linked from the app is at the Chocolate Factory's GitHub repo.

Android Police spotted the app but didn't notice the feature straight away. However, when someone pointed it out, AP's Corbin Davenport tested it against an SMBv2-only environment: “I'll disable SMBv1 on my home server and try to connect to it again. Edit: Nope, it doesn't connect. Ugh.”

Ugh, indeed. ®

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