Google's flagship Pixel smartphone line touts security as a centerpiece feature, offering guaranteed software updates for seven years and running stock Android that's meant to be free of third-party add-ons and bloatware. On Thursday, though, researchers from the mobile device security firm iVerify are publishing findings on an Android vulnerability that seems to have been present in every Android release for Pixel since September 2017 and could expose the devices to manipulation and takeover.

The issue relates to a software package called “Showcase.apk” that runs at the system level and lurks invisible to users. The application was developed by the enterprise software company SmithMicro for Verizon as a mechanism for putting phones into a retail store demo mode—it is not Google software. Yet for years, it has been in each Android release for Pixel and has deep system privileges, including remote code execution and remote software installation. Even riskier, the application is designed to download a configuration file over an unencrypted HTTP web connection that iVerify researchers say could be hijacked by an attacker to take control of the application and then the entire victim device.

iVerify disclosed its findings to Google at the beginning of May, and the tech giant has not yet released a fix for the issue. Google spokesperson Ed Fernandez tells WIRED in a statement that Showcase “is no longer being used” by Verizon, and Android will remove Showcase from all supported Pixel devices with a software update “in the coming weeks.” He added that Google has not seen evidence of active exploitation and that the app is not present in the new Pixel 9 series devices that Google announced this week. Verizon and SmithMicro did not respond to WIRED's requests for comment ahead of publication.

“I’ve seen a lot of Android vulnerabilities, and this one is unique in a few ways and quite troubling,” says Rocky Cole, chief operating officer of iVerify and a former NSA analyst. “When Showcase.apk runs, it has the ability to take over the phone. But the code is, frankly, shoddy. It raises questions about why third-party software that runs with such high privileges so deep in the operating system was not tested more de...