Fair enough and have I mentioned how handsome you look today.
Hey Marvin, where do you keep the reasons why someone was banned, just curious.
They are logged in the user account somewhere - possibly the user profile. There are preset infractions such as ad-homs, posting guideline violations etc and they typically get linked with a comment that a user made. You don't have any in case you're wondering.
If you read the report, it actually didn't increase in the USA from 2011 to 2012, just in other countries. So yes, less than 2% of all Android phones in the United States most likely have some form of malware on it that specializes in stealing data. The report cites (and this is new) that people who sideload and use application vendors outside of Google Play are most likely the ones infected. The report cites that mostly a younger generation of users who do this.
So lets do some math.
Young People + Sideloading outside applications = Pirating. Yup. Bobby and Sarah at your local University live off ramen and probably pirate Doodle Jump when they should be studying.
Before I switch gears I also wanted to note the irony of the Google Play store logo as the front page picture for this story, as Google Play is the default App store and isn't affected by this issue.
--
But to be fair, I have an iPhone because I enjoy getting my updates the moment Apple releases them. It's an incredible feature, however:
I give Android leeway in some of these issues because Google cannot make OEM's and Wireless Carriers certify and release updates.
Google is remedying this problem by slowing down the pace of their OS updates. Jelly Bean is a slow moving creature these days, getting incremental updates. Slowly the pie chart will fill out with mostly Jelly Bean devices.
Google's Android OS has been the faster improving Mobile OS. It's seen some incredible jumps in interface and features over the past four years. Many lower end devices just got left behind. iOS in contrast has been incremental.
If we are having a debate where you said to me "iOS is more secure than Android", it wouldn't be much of a debate because I agree. But I don't believe we're in an epidemic of Android malware. The default setup of Android is secure, and allows people to own a phone with larger screens, different types of battery life and whatever customization they want. Every single article about Android malware always has a stipulation where people turn off some key settings in their phone to get it to install. That's just not scary, and it's not worth sounding the alarms. Get back to me when malware installs through Google Play or you just turn the phone on and infections spring up.
well, we can quibble about words all day. but as far as i'm concerned, 19 million worldwide - assuming that report is valid - malware infected droid phones = "an epidemic." i think anytime something gets into 8 figures, it is "significant" beyond any question. and 1 million in the USA is also a big enough number in this one country to be "important." the report also said the total was 3x the year before. i would certainly consider that to be "alarming." we will see what happens in 2013.
1 million in the USA is also a big enough number in this one country to be "important." the report also said the total was 3x the year before. i would certainly consider that to be "alarming." we will see what happens in 2013.
I'd expect it's over 1 million already due to what happened a couple of months ago in the Google Play store:
"Last month a form of malware called BadNews was downloaded several million times from the Google Play store. This malware impersonated an ad network and leaked personal information from affected phones to a designated offshore server. It also prompted users to install a Trojan application (AlphaSMS) which produces expensive text charges. All in all, it wasn't pretty.
According to an article on arstechnica.com, Google examines all apps uploaded to Play (they use a cloud service called Bouncer to verify new apps against known malware signatures and test them for malware-like behavior). In this instance the BadNews-related apps were clean upon upload. The designers introduced the malware components to these programs several weeks later."
Then there's emails that don't get the protection of a curated store:
"A president of a Japanese IT firm has been arrested following a police investigation into an Android malware campaign.
Masaaki Kagawa, the 50-year-old president of IT firm Koei Planning, was apprehended along with eight other individuals, over their alleged involvement in spreading spam emails that carried Android malware that collected contact details from a victims device. He is said to be a prolific poker player, earning over a million dollars from his gambling.
Kagawa’s company was said to have earned around $3.9 million (£2.5m) by running a fake dating service. The spam messages directed people to that site, whilst also carrying the malware. The malware was used to hoover up more contact details to constantly expand the scope of the illicit campaign.
Security giant Symantec aided police in the investigation. It said the operation began around September 2012 and ended in April 2013. Around 150 domains were used to host the malicious apps, and reports suggested around 37 million email addresses from 810,000 Android devices were collected by the malware.
The Enesoluty malicious program is believed to have connections to other campaigns, the security firm said.
“We also believe Android.Maistealer and Android.Enesoluty share common source code with another malware, called Android.Uracto, and that a different group of scammers were maintaining the latter, as the distribution strategy of the malware differs considerably,” it said.
“It is believed that this other group has yet to be identified, so there will probably be another few twists and turns to this story in the future.”
Mobile threats are increasingly causing genuine problems, particularly for Android users. Google’s OS is responsible for 92 percent of all known mobile malware, according to Juniper Networks."
Comments
They are logged in the user account somewhere - possibly the user profile. There are preset infractions such as ad-homs, posting guideline violations etc and they typically get linked with a comment that a user made. You don't have any in case you're wondering.
Quote:
Originally Posted by koop
If you read the report, it actually didn't increase in the USA from 2011 to 2012, just in other countries. So yes, less than 2% of all Android phones in the United States most likely have some form of malware on it that specializes in stealing data. The report cites (and this is new) that people who sideload and use application vendors outside of Google Play are most likely the ones infected. The report cites that mostly a younger generation of users who do this.
So lets do some math.
Young People + Sideloading outside applications = Pirating. Yup. Bobby and Sarah at your local University live off ramen and probably pirate Doodle Jump when they should be studying.
Before I switch gears I also wanted to note the irony of the Google Play store logo as the front page picture for this story, as Google Play is the default App store and isn't affected by this issue.
--
But to be fair, I have an iPhone because I enjoy getting my updates the moment Apple releases them. It's an incredible feature, however:
I give Android leeway in some of these issues because Google cannot make OEM's and Wireless Carriers certify and release updates.
Google is remedying this problem by slowing down the pace of their OS updates. Jelly Bean is a slow moving creature these days, getting incremental updates. Slowly the pie chart will fill out with mostly Jelly Bean devices.
Google's Android OS has been the faster improving Mobile OS. It's seen some incredible jumps in interface and features over the past four years. Many lower end devices just got left behind. iOS in contrast has been incremental.
If we are having a debate where you said to me "iOS is more secure than Android", it wouldn't be much of a debate because I agree. But I don't believe we're in an epidemic of Android malware. The default setup of Android is secure, and allows people to own a phone with larger screens, different types of battery life and whatever customization they want. Every single article about Android malware always has a stipulation where people turn off some key settings in their phone to get it to install. That's just not scary, and it's not worth sounding the alarms. Get back to me when malware installs through Google Play or you just turn the phone on and infections spring up.
well, we can quibble about words all day. but as far as i'm concerned, 19 million worldwide - assuming that report is valid - malware infected droid phones = "an epidemic." i think anytime something gets into 8 figures, it is "significant" beyond any question. and 1 million in the USA is also a big enough number in this one country to be "important." the report also said the total was 3x the year before. i would certainly consider that to be "alarming." we will see what happens in 2013.
Facebook must love this Android event.
Spy on guys!
I'd expect it's over 1 million already due to what happened a couple of months ago in the Google Play store:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/google-in-the-enterprise/malware-in-the-google-play-store-enemy-inside-the-gates/
"Last month a form of malware called BadNews was downloaded several million times from the Google Play store. This malware impersonated an ad network and leaked personal information from affected phones to a designated offshore server. It also prompted users to install a Trojan application (AlphaSMS) which produces expensive text charges. All in all, it wasn't pretty.
According to an article on arstechnica.com, Google examines all apps uploaded to Play (they use a cloud service called Bouncer to verify new apps against known malware signatures and test them for malware-like behavior). In this instance the BadNews-related apps were clean upon upload. The designers introduced the malware components to these programs several weeks later."
Then there's emails that don't get the protection of a curated store:
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/japan-poker-android-malware-arrests-123059
"A president of a Japanese IT firm has been arrested following a police investigation into an Android malware campaign.
Masaaki Kagawa, the 50-year-old president of IT firm Koei Planning, was apprehended along with eight other individuals, over their alleged involvement in spreading spam emails that carried Android malware that collected contact details from a victims device. He is said to be a prolific poker player, earning over a million dollars from his gambling.
Kagawa’s company was said to have earned around $3.9 million (£2.5m) by running a fake dating service. The spam messages directed people to that site, whilst also carrying the malware. The malware was used to hoover up more contact details to constantly expand the scope of the illicit campaign.
Security giant Symantec aided police in the investigation. It said the operation began around September 2012 and ended in April 2013. Around 150 domains were used to host the malicious apps, and reports suggested around 37 million email addresses from 810,000 Android devices were collected by the malware.
The Enesoluty malicious program is believed to have connections to other campaigns, the security firm said.
“We also believe Android.Maistealer and Android.Enesoluty share common source code with another malware, called Android.Uracto, and that a different group of scammers were maintaining the latter, as the distribution strategy of the malware differs considerably,” it said.
“It is believed that this other group has yet to be identified, so there will probably be another few twists and turns to this story in the future.”
Mobile threats are increasingly causing genuine problems, particularly for Android users. Google’s OS is responsible for 92 percent of all known mobile malware, according to Juniper Networks."
See, you can make money from Android users.