- Posts tagged AntiVirus
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Google's lax vetting allows almost any app in the Android market. Unscrupulous developers rejoice.
It collects a user’s browsing history, text messages, your phone’s SIM card number, subscriber identification, and even your voice mail password. It sends the data to a web site […] That site is evidently owned by someone in Shenzhen, China. The app has been downloaded anywhere from 1.1 million to 4.6 million times.
Though the research comes from a maker of Android security software, they've identified what the malicious app does and where the data is sent; the issue is real.
No vetting is perfect. Apple recently approved a flashlight app that housed a tethering application (though it harmed no users). But Apple shows concern about iPhone privacy. The excellent location services in iOS 4 are a great example. I appreciate the work they do on this.
For Android, we can and should excoriate the developers of this particular app, but we should also excoriate Google for barely trying to avoid this sort of thing.
So this is Android:
- Available apps with little curation, and security issues being exploited.
- Multiple OS releases and features that may or may not be coming to your particular hardware.
- Multiple devices from multiple vendors each having vendor-specific software/services (crapware).
- A real possibility that soon running security software will not only be prudent, but a foolish thing not to do.
Do these sound familiar? It's the Windows OS model of the 1990s. Android resembles it more every day.
TAB - To Morro: A Microsoft Musical
Microsoft’s free antivirus software, Morro, will soon be in beta testing. A free cure for one of the Windows world’s greatest sicknesses. And you know it’s gotta be good, because who better to close those doors than the company that opened them in the first place?
We should all practice safe computing, so as a Mac user I’m not going to mention the stark virus differences between the opposing platforms. Rather, today I suggest we lift our voice in song to celebrate the occasion with our Windows-loving friends.
Come on, you know the song, so feel free to join in…
Read the rest of this article on theAppleBlog >>
