MILLIONS of Australians are at risk of hackers taking complete control of their smartphones and tablets with four security flaws found in the chip set powering the devices.

Security firm Check Point today have issued a warning that as many as 10 million Australian Android devices are vulnerable to being completely controlled by hackers because of four flaws in the Qualcomm chip set.

Check Point issued a blog past warning of the major security hole called QuadRooter which affects most of the world’s Android phone makers including Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola, Sony and Google.

Popular phone models at risk include Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, Google’s Nexus 5X and Nexus 6, HTC One M9 and BlackBerry’s DTEK50 which it markets as the “most secure Android phone”.

“Odds are, if you have an Android device, you are affected,” the Check Point warning says.

A malicious app could exploit the security flaws, with Check Point warning a hacker could have full access to the Android device including the data, camera and microphone.

Qualcomm has issued a fix for most of the flaws but that first has to be passed on to the various manufacturers who then have to pass it on to their customers. A final update to fix the problem is not expected until Google releases the September patch for Android.

Check Point has released a tool called QuadRooter Scanner on the Google Play app store. That will enable Android users to detect if their device is still vulnerable.

Check Point recommends Android users install the latest Android updates and avoid loading apps unless they are on the Google Play store.