Report: 1 in 5 Android Apps Is Malware

[Daniel Nenni]

During Wally's Are There Trojans in Your Silicon? You Don't Know keynote last week he asked how many people with Android phones have the flashlight app. He then said the app should only be 100kb and if yours is larger it is probably malware. The guy next to me had a 2MB flashlight app which he deleted immediately. Same thing with his compass app. You should check all of your apps and see if they are size appropriate. It does not take 2MB of code to turn on a light.


Report: 1 in 5 Android Apps Is Malware
According to Symantec’s latest Internet Security Threat Report, “17 percent of all Android apps (nearly one million total) were actually malware in disguise.” In 2013, Symantec uncovered roughly 700,000 virus-laden apps.


More than one third of all apps were what Symatec calls "grayware" or “madware” -- mobile software whose primary purpose is to bombard you with ads. The company also discovered the first example of mobile crypto-ransomware – software that encrypts your data and holds it hostage until you pay ransom for it – for Android devices.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/report-one-in-five-android-apps-is-malware-117202610899.html

 

[lilo777]

Perhaps Wally should stick to something he actually knows. The times of 100KB applications ended some 20 years ago. Nowadays with modern APIs Hello World applications usually have a size measured in MBs. And as far as the Android malware myth is concerned... here is an interesting comparison. Flashlight application for iOS from iHandy Inc. on iTunes store has size 16.1 MB. Can you imagine how much malware does it pack?

 

[Staf_Verhaegen]

Report: 1 in 5 Android Apps Is Malware
According to Symantec’s latest Internet Security Threat Report, “17 percent of all Android apps (nearly one million total) were actually malware in disguise.” In 2013, Symantec uncovered roughly 700,000 virus-laden apps.


More than one third of all apps were what Symatec calls "grayware" or “madware” -- mobile software whose primary purpose is to bombard you with ads. The company also discovered the first example of mobile crypto-ransomware – software that encrypts your data and holds it hostage until you pay ransom for it – for Android devices.

Don't follow the Symantec scaremongering. Defining ad-sponsored free apps as malware is a typical FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) tactic of a software guy who wants to sell their anti-malware software. People having a problem with ad-sponsored free services have probably some higher priority 'problems': Google, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, ...