Billions of Android apps vulnerable to hackers
By Priya Anand <applewebdata://71888009-E731-47CB-9318-C0DD22597B06>
Published: Feb 28, 2015 9:56 a.m. ET
<http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story_email.asp?guid={5CDA4F58-BEC2-11E4-92FE-92D362F58A08}&dist=emailMidSection>
57
Bloomberg
Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Android, Chrome and Apps for Google,
speaks during the Google I/O Annual Developers Conference in June 2014.
More than five billion downloaded Android apps are vulnerable to hacks, and the
number of apps designed to steal financial information from users has
skyrocketed, according to a report released Friday.
Ninety-six percent of mobile malware targets Android, Google’s GOOG, -0.08%
<http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/goog?mod=MW_story_quote> operating
software, on which malicious apps “can pose as benign applications,” according
to the Silicon Valley-based security company FireEye
<https://www2.fireeye.com/rs/fireye/images/rpt-mobile-threat-assessment.pdf>.
The number of malware-laden Android apps intended to nab financial data rose
500% in the second half of 2013. FireEye found more than 1,300 unique samples
of financial malware in December 2013, compared with 260 in June 2013.
Also see: The banking industry’s biggest cyer fears
<http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-financial-industrys-biggest-cyber-fears-2014-09-10>
Critics have long said that the Google Play app store is infested with sketchy
applications. Users face a range of security risks, from apps that are written
insecurely and can be hijacked despite being harmless in nature, to those that
were created to steal information or dial numbers and send texts that rack up
fees, according to the FireEye report.
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