Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Friday January 05 2018, @03:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-play's-the-thing-where-I'll-capture... dept.

TrendMicro has discovered 36 apps in Google Play that execute unwanted behavior:

These apps posed as useful security tools under the names Security Defender, Security Keeper, Smart Security, Advanced Boost, and more. They also advertised a variety of capabilities: scanning, cleaning junk, saving battery, cooling the CPU, locking apps, as well as message security, WiFi security, and so on.

The apps were actually able to perform these simple tasks, but they also secretly harvested user data, tracked user location, and aggressively pushed advertisements.

The apps in question have been removed from Google Play.

Related: Google Pauses Crackdown on Apps That Use Accessibility Features


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday January 05 2018, @08:42PM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Friday January 05 2018, @08:42PM (#618502) Homepage Journal

    Then set the IP addresses of all the mobile analytics servers to 127.0.0.1.

    I once attended a presentation by some mobile analytics people. Despite that the developer SDKs as well as actually using analytics were both free, one of the speakers showed a photo of her company's data center.

    Data centers are expensive. Who pays for all that information?

    Consider the challenges faced by closeted gay Republican politicians.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2