“Up to 500 million Andriod users who use or have used Android software could be at risk from having personal information shared after tests revealed it’s impossible to clear data from many devices,” James Dunn reports for The Daily Mail. “A report by Cambridge University showed that private text messages, images, videos and email details can be recovered, even after a total wipe – or factory reset – has been done. It means that people who have given away, sold or lost phones are now at risk from having their personal details and any private or sensitive information in messages or emails seen by whoever now has their old phone.”
“They could also access third party applications. Many phone users store financial information and do their banking through some of the most popular apps on tablets and phones such as Halifax and Nat West,” Dunn reports. “Researchers also recovered Google authentication tokens, allowing to access services which are synced across a number of devices, including Gmail, YouTube, and any images or videos stored using Google cloud services.”
“They also discovered that up to 630million phones may not wipe internal SD cards, which often store most of the images and videos on a phone,” Dunn reports. “Speaking to Ars Technica, Computer Scientist Kenn White said: ‘It’s a staggering number of devices out there that are exposed, and it’s not just somebody’s Gmail password. It’s images, photos, text, chat. It’s all these things that are private that you think if you’ve reset it you’ve reset it.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “Open.”
Now to be fair, this is only because Android is an inferior product peddled to tech illiterates who do not value their privacy and/or who are unable to recognize a half-assed knockoff from the revolutionary original.
Android is a BlackBerry clone that was hastily rejiggered to mimic iPhone at the last minute. Obviously, mistakes were made.
So, the Android rush-job is a security nightmare. It’s fragmented. It’s too many cooks in the kitchen. It’s crap-by-committee junk.
And anyone who rewards blatant thieves by settling for Android deserves their fate.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz,” “Mark,” and “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Prior to Steve Jobs unveiling of Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android didn’t support touchscreen input – April 14, 2014
Before iPhone, Google’s plan was a Java button phone, Android docs reveal – April 14, 2014
How Google reacted when Steve Jobs revealed the revolutionary iPhone – December 19, 2013
Apple to ITC: Android started at Apple while Andy Rubin worked for us – September 2, 2011