Now Sony’s Xperia Z falls prey to the bypass lockscreen bug

26 Mar 2013

The Sony Xperia Z smartphone

Sony’s new Xperia Z is the latest smartphone device to fall afoul of a bug that lets hackers potentially bypass the device’s lockscreen.

In recent weeks, Samsung and Apple were revealed to have vulnerabilities that allowed hackers to bypass the lockscreen using the emergency dialler. Last week, Apple rolled out iOS 6.1.3, patching up the EvasiOn jailbreak exploit, and Samsung went to work to patch up a lockscreen vulnerability discovered on its Galaxy smartphones.

Blogger Scott Reed discovered the issue in the Xperia Z, which allows users to type in the sequence *#*#7378423#*#*, which then brings up the services menu.

Once a user uses the NFC > NFC Diag Test, the home button can be pressed and can be accessed.

See Scott Reed’s video below:

 

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com