“In addition, some 5% of Android apps can be used to place a call to any number, and 2% of applications can send an SMS to an unknown premium number, in both cases without user involvement,” Ricknäs reports.
Full article here.
Elinor Mills reports for CNET, “Dozens of apps were found to have the same type of access to sensitive information as known spyware does, including access to the content of e-mails and text messages, phone call information, and device location, said Dan Hoffman, chief technology officer at SMobile Systems.”
Mills reports, “For those who want to download apps without having to worry there is antispyware software from SMobile Systems and others. ‘There are known spyware apps that are on the market,’ Hoffman said. ‘It’s a growing problem.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Google. The new Microsoft – in more ways than just poorly copying Apple.
I am surprised what the Android SDK allows you to do; I didn’t think I could access a lot of the data I can get to. I haven’t tried this, but I think you can open any other app’s SQLite DB. I could be wrong, but Android allows you to go wherever in the file system. This could be debatable though; you have read access to almost everything on a desktop computer. Of course, a desktop app that accesses private data and sends it off without permission is called a virus or spyware…
I like the fact that Apple is so secretive, and I hope, and trust, that that attitude spills over into protecting my privacy even at the expense of some services and conveniences.
I am really amazed how similar Google’s Android strategy is to Microsoft Windows. Though Windows dominates the consumer market, they are undoubtedly not the best Computer OS system for a user to experience. I don’t know if Android will come to dominate the mobile market but if it does, it might turn out to be like Windows with its mess of malware, various skin versions of Android etc. Yuck. Google could have chosen another strategy and yet chose to use a Microsoft strategy. Yuck!
But, but, but it’s open source-the community takes care of all bugs, security holes!
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G**gle is “Big Brother’s” bigger brother.
@_Bill_
The Android SDK is great!
Remember this gem….
http://www.phonearena.com/htmls/Malicious-banking-app-found-in-the-Android-Marketplace-article-a_8744.html
Got to love that Google, they`re a surveillance system masquerading as an advertising company. And now with the Android SDK you can play along at home too!
Is this a result of the the Android SDK or of the apps themselves? I have the same concerns about the apps on my iPhone. After all most of the Android apps are available as iPhone apps as well.
Open Source: Great for security.
However, when the apps are NOT Open Source, which IS the case with Android apps, AND you don’t have any kind of oversight, which IS the case with Android apps, you get WHATEVER.
What Google does is wait for victims of CRAPWARE and MALWARE to complain to Google about the damage done. THEN Google investigate and possibly yank the app.
Me = NOT interested.
Android kids: Have fun with your rat’s nest.
‘JoeKnows’ sez: “I have the same concerns about the apps on my iPhone. After all most of the Android apps are available as iPhone apps as well.”
Actually, those are the apps you want. They have gone through Apple’s oversight process. They will NOT be malware. They will NOT be blatant crapware. (Well, except for the fact that they have had to be recoded for Android).
It’s the stuff that has not had any oversight that you need to worry about. IOW: Thank you Apple. Bite me Google.
@Joe
Apps submitted to Apple are screened, Android market place is like a Mogadishu weapons bazaar.
Interesting they mention that just because an app comes from a known source like the android store or “Apples App store” doesn’t mean the app can be trusted. Oddly enough I don’t see anywhere in the article that any iOS apps were found to have spyware.
These privacy concerns are becoming a serious trend from Google. The “mistake” excuse is long past. This is looking more and more deliberate.
This is the biggest problem with Android. Apple is a little too control happy. But with Google everything is a go. Too much control can be a bad thing. Too little control is just as bad if not worse. I can download anything from the Apple store and not think twice about it.
The Open Source community is trying to provide the User with the freedom to do whatever they want … a Good Thing. Unfortunately, this means they have to allow the Bad Guys the ability to do whatever they want … a BAD Thing.
This is like the BP-apologists blaming the Gulf Spill on the pathetic government oversight and recommending NO oversight as a “fix”.
Evil + Dumb = Google.
Is there any possibility of using these Apps to infect a computer during syncing?
During syncing malware cannot never ever enter your computer…
(heheh… Mr. Smithers)
@currentinterest – sounds like a good idea, sure.
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I too am interested to hear if there are similarities to iPhone apps – I mean, I’m not a developer so I don’t know, but I immediately wondered what the possibilities were also. For example, I know that when “Location data” is accessed, I have to give the app permission to do so. Is this true in Android also? Are these apps asking for data and then using it with appropriate permission?
A lot of unanswered questions in what is typical for online journalism these days. Make a statement about the “percentage of Android Apps… blah blah blah” but then don’t back it up with a comparison to iPhone apps in the same way, or explain how or why this is a problem exactly.
I think the new age of portable devices like phones and iPads make this an increasingly scary time to worry about malware and security given the fact that you now have so much of your personal, financial, and technical data in such a capable device, and that’s portable and with you almost all the time!
yes, MDN is right. just like MS failed to build security into the foundation of Windows 95 in its rush to copy and rip off the Mac OS, resulting in perpetual security vulnerability, so has Google made exactly the same mistake with Android. a whole new era of malware is now being launched as a result.
While the iOS instead is almost totally defended from the bottom up (except for the jailbreakers). so what will be the cop out by the pundits this time, since “security via obscurity” obviously doesn’t apply?
LOL at needing antispyware software to be safe on your Android phone! Yessireebob, Google is copying Android’s strategy in every way!
——RM
we old curmudgeons just don’t get it.
kids don’t care about privacy or security — they just want to feel connected! and besides, the internet is crawling with trolls telling us how expensive Apple is — you should just accept lower quality and total lack of security in the interest of saving a few bucks.
Short-term thinking is the American Way.
So are these some of the features that “Droid does”
Watch… within one year, Symantec, McAfee, and the rest will be offering “malware” detection apps for Android phones. It “multi-tasks” in the background and alerts the user if an app they downloaded (or the Android OS itself) is doing something potentially shady. Then, it asks the user to “allow or cancel.”
Then, within another year, it will all become part of the “Android experience” and Android users will become numb to the annoyances. Soon (maybe by the time iPhone gets on Verizon), Apple will be able to recycle the entire “Get a Mac” campaign.
“Hello, I’m an iPhone.”
“And I’m an Android phone.”