Open ports are a well-known threat vector on servers, where administrators deploy security software with the primary purpose of shutting down or alerting the owner every time an unauthorized port is opened, or someone tries to connect to it.
The last place you’d expect to have problems with open ports is your smartphone, mainly because server and mobile operating systems have very few in common.
In reality, the Android OS, which was based on an early version of the Linux kernel, has inherited the same problem.
Research on the mobile open port problem started after researchers read a Trend Micro report from 2015 about a vulnerability in the Baidu SDK, which opened a port on user devices, providing an attacker with a way to access the phone of a user who installed an app that used the Baidu SDK. That particular vulnerability affected over 100 million smartphones, but Baidu moved quickly to release an update.
Basically, the research team is saying that anyone who knows where to look, could identify apps that open ports, which in turn grant access to various phone features, such as photos, contacts, the camera, and more.
