There are the problems of an open source platform. Under the ever-growing popularity of the Google mobile operating system at the same time increasing the security risk, which is difficult to get a grip. New studies now show on significant safety deficiencies in a variety of applications available in the popular Google Play Store.
The security company “Bit9” has launched a full investigation on the Android apps analyzed from a Google Play store on safety hazards and defects. The most appalling results published by the company now.
Accordingly, every fourth Android App in Google Play store in part unfounded data collectors and for the user a security risk represented about 26 percent of the backing store based apps access to personal data, identify unfounded the location of the user or access the phone book. It seems the main problem directly occur during installation. For a variety of apps want to install, the user of the application to exercise certain rights that are not at all times necessary to ensure that the app is running correctly.
The security company Bit9 is even ready for this one example. According Bit9, attacks including the Android app “Angry Birds Wallpaper” which is just a wallpaper, but it tracks your location with GPS.. And this is just one example of more than 100,000 apps are having security flaws. According Bit9 total of 400,000 Android apps in Google Play store were studied, nearly 42 percent of them access to GPS data, almost 31 percent accesses the phone book and just under a quarter even of personal data.
Some of the most aggressive apps are programs purporting to be affiliated with popular brands such as Facebook and Zynga, Bit9 Chief Technology Officer Harry Sverdlove wrote in an e-mail. The extra functions don’t necessarily make the programs malicious, but they do raise questions about the developers’ intentions, he added.
“Including a common app or publisher in the title is not a guaranteed sign of suspicious behavior, but it is certainly a technique that malicious authors use to trick users into installing their apps,” Sverdlove wrote.
There’s no operating system in the World which is 100 percent reliable, is likely to be aware of each. Therefore, the security company also mentions that other competing platforms like iOS from Apple or Windows Phone from Microsoft are far from certain, and apps for these platforms also safety defects. But in the case of open source Android platform, security risk is too much.
Source:Bit9
