Scams and threats to avoid, plus new security tools
What happened?
Security firm Trend Micro said that the number of malicious Android apps had hit one million, up from 700,000 at the end of June. The company said that 75 per cent of these performed “outright malicious routines”, such as stealing financial information and sending messages to premium-rate phone numbers that leave victims with huge bills. The remaining apps exhibit “dubious routines” such as installing adverts without your permission.
Many dodgy apps – notably those in the FakeInst family of malware – are hard to spot because they deliberately look like popular, legitimate apps in order to trick you into installing them. In one of the most high-profile FakeInst attacks, criminals created fake versions of the game Bad Piggies (www.snipca.com/10235), an Angry Birds spin-off. Given the intentionally similar name of Bad Pigs, the app was installed around 10,000 times during May and June 2013. The rogue version has since been pulled from the app stores.
What should I do?
There are simple rules to follow to avoid installing Android malware. The most important is to only download apps from the Google Play store (https://play.google.com) or the app store provided by your device. These official stores allow fewer dodgy apps to be sold than third-party stores. Google, for example, automatically scans every app for malware using a security system called Bouncer (www. snipca. com/10236).
A surefire sign that an app is malicious is if it asks for permissions that appear inappro- priate for the task you want it to perform. Bad Pigs was a particularly bad offender, asking for information relating to your location, network communication, accounts, storage, phone call records, hardware controls and system tools.
You should also use a mobile antivirus app – such as the free Kaspersky Mobile Security Lite (www. snipca.com/10237) – and upgrade your phone and tablet to Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) because it offers improved security that fights malware.
