Is Android safe?

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 11:03:06 GMT

Every month new Android phones are being released by different manufacturers... Its an Android Race out there!!!

Isnt it gonna be a target for hackers cause they must be watching this rise of Android!!!

How safe is this OS??? Is Google protecting this or are they waiting for something to happen???

We are able to install andriod apps from different websites... isnt it possible to create some malicious code in a software which could collect our details n stuff??

Also is there any anti virus software to protect Android phones?? If so please mention a few!!!

Re: Is Android safe?

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 11:50:23 GMT

Google is doing the minimum that they can get away with - only removing known "bad" apps. To me this is a major flaw with their implementation of a Market Place - folks might not like Apple's draconian, and frequently changed, "editorial controls" on iTMS - but you've got to admit that it does give a feeling of security to know that someone has reviewed the app.

The fact you can install from many websites, doesn't necessarily mean that you should - that AllowInstallOfNonMarketplaceApplications setting is switched to off by default for a reason!

And not only is it possible for such malware to be written, some already has - there was that fake bank app that got pulled by Google a while ago, and there's been reports of a pretty nasty rootkit/trojan that was shown at some 'black hat' conferences about a month ago.

Hmm, to answer the last question first - a google search of "android antivirus" will throw up a couple of hits - including some free products.

I have severe doubts over the efficacy of such AV products - remember that Android is a Linux box at heart, so usually you won't have root permissions anyway - so that's conventional viruses stopped dead - the worse thing a bad program could do would be to delete your saved files - music, video and docs. And I'm only 50/50 sure that it could even go as far as to delete programs you've added (which should be an easy attack to fix - just redownload them).

No far worse than a mere virus are the trojans that steal personal information. However - as noted elsewhere - if you take a note of the install permissions requested then that should start some alarm bells ringing - why is a game asking for SMS access or access to your contact list? Okay, it could be a genuine mistake by the developer, (being sloppy), or it could be an indication of something bad? I'm doing a big anti-malware project in the office at the moment, and a project manager there came up with a good saying ... "smart software is not a remedy for dumb users". So rather than antivirus, I'm thinking that firewall would be better - especially one with a default of deny-all. Best firewall out there seems to be DroidWall (free!) but it also looks like it could be a bit tricky to configure - so if you're expecting a Norton style interface then prepare to be disappointed. Good thing about that is that it appears to just be a front-end for the iptables filter that Android already has inside - so minimal extra performance hit (I guess).

Hope this helps. Bob

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Is Android safe?

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