Android security: 2.5X more likely to encounter malware
No matter who you are and what devices you use, the sky is indeed falling — pain is coming. However, the rate at which the heavens are crashing down depends greatly on which widgets you use and Android folks will be screwed faster and more often.
Aside from a basic programming skill set, the Android Marketplace has few barriers to entry. And, unlike Apple’s App Store, no one’s actually minding the store, vetting each and every app for quality, usability or security.
So, if you want to build a game or fake banking app for Android, there’s nothing standing in your way. Thereupon, Lookout Mobile Security reports that three in 10 Android users will encounter malware this year alone.
• Android users are two and a half times as likely to encounter malware today than 6 months ago
• Three out of ten Android owners are likely to encounter a web-based threat on their device each year
• An estimated half million to one million people were affected by Android malware in the first half of 2011
• Android apps infected with malware went from 80 apps in January to more than 400 apps cumulative in June 2011
• Over 250,000 Android users were recently compromised in an unprecedented mobile attack when they downloaded malicious software disguised as legitimate applications from the Android Market
Android security is poor and getting worse. It’s very much like the America envisioned by Tea Partiers where you’re free to get sick (robbed, poisoned by a corporation, ripped off by a credit card company/bank, etc.), lose your home and die all without any unnatural and malevolent intervention from the government.
Gawd bless Google (and pass the ammunition)…
What’s your take?
August 5th, 2011
Oooh, I cannot wait for the rabid pro-Android fanboy comments!
August 5th, 2011
I have an Android phone and I run antivirus on it. Luckily I haven’t come across any viruses yet but to me it is the Windows of the mobile world. Cheap at retail, compatible with lots of devices, does enough for the average consumer to be satisfied but with massive security holes that are becoming increasingly exploited due to a big userbase for hackers to target.
Let’s face it, whilst it isn’t perfect, iOS is the best out there. If you like the price then great, if you don’t then you still can appreciate its design and merit. When you consider the high amount of money that iOS users spend on Apps and stuff compared to Android users (a statistic recently reported widely across the web) you might have thought iOS would have become a bigger target as card details are stored on there among other things. Part of it is the design of the operating system but a much larger part of hacking is, like with OSX, the desire of hackers to get into the system. If they really want to, they most probably will somehow, so how iOS remains relatively secure is beyond me.
August 15th, 2011
I assume that you already know that your site rocks hehe; thanks for this …