Bitdefender researchers have disclosed GhostMap, an Android vulnerability that can force affected devices into persistent crash loops following the installation of a specially crafted APK. The vulnerability exploits inconsistencies in Android's APK archive parsing mechanisms, potentially rendering devices unusable and requiring a factory reset. Researchers reproduced the issue on Android 10 and later, including Android 17. GhostMap originates from inconsistent validation of compression methods and declared uncompressed file sizes between Android's libziparchive and libandroidfw components. While libziparchive validates uncompressed sizes for stored entries, unsupported compression methods can bypass this check. Meanwhile, libandroidfw interprets unsupported methods as stored entries and maps files according to their declared uncompressed lengths. This discrepancy allows a crafted APK to create a file-backed memory mapping extending beyond the actual file contents. Accessing the invalid memory region triggers a SIGBUS signal, terminating the affected process. When Android's system_server repeatedly inspects the malformed resource, it crashes and restarts, creating a continuous crash loop. The demonstration APK requires no permissions, contains no executable code, and does not need to be launched. Rebooting and safe mode may not resolve the issue. No confirmed code execution, privilege escalation, or data theft has been demonstrated.
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