A security firm has discovered a serious vulnerability in Qualcomm phone chips that exposes devices to exploitation, allowing hackers to listen in on calls and access text messages.

Check Point Research explain that 30 per cent of the world’s phones may be affected.

“Cellular modem chips are often considered the crown jewels for cyber attackers, especially the chips manufactured by Qualcomm,” said Yaniv Balmas, Head of Cyber Research at Check Point.

“An attack on Qualcomm modem chips has the potential to negatively affect hundreds of millions of mobile phones across the globe.

“We ultimately proved a dangerous vulnerability did in fact exist in these chips, revealing how an attacker could use the Android OS itself to inject malicious code into mobile phones, undetected.”

He suggests Android users should update to the latest OS.

Read the entire record here.