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Android users travelling outside the official Android Market must be careful which apps they install. (Of a HTC Droid Eris) photo by Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Android fans have long defended philosophy "open" Google smartphone platform. The recent emergence of a new Trojan horse in unofficial places Android app, however, may cause users to think twice about how open they want the platform to be.
The application in question, Android.Walkinwat, appears to be a pirated, free another version application, "walking and text." The true version is available at the official purchase of market Google Android for a low price ($1.54).
If you download the wrong app (from informal markets for Android apps) and install it, it redirects you to the actual application in the Android market - but in the background, it sends the following message embarrassing for your complete directory via SMS:
Hey, just downloaded an app hacked off the coast of the internet, [sic] walk and text for Android. IM stupid and good market, it is encrypted only 1 buck.Do not steal like me!
Blatant spelling and grammatical errors aside, the text message serves as a reminder of the risks for those willing to go outside the official market for applications.
"Someone downloaded the app, inserted their malware and it downloaded in other non-official markets," Chief product Symantec mobile team John Engels said article in an interview.
In other words, if you go outside the official market, things may not be what they seem, and there is no guarantee that what you download, this is what you really want to.
Google maintains clear policies on all applications that are downloaded on the official Android market, and developers quite well know in advance what are these policies and how not to break. Whenever an application in clear violation of the policies of Google presents on the market - as, say, a piece of malicious software - engineers Google's Android are often quick to quash it.
But if you're not one for the regulations and rules, wicked and want to see what the markets not sanctioned by Google have to offer, simply access them on a device Android is for you to check a box on the settings page, allowing your phone install applications from "unknown sources".
To some extent, this is not a huge problem for the novice user. Many external applications are hosted on web sites that users like your grandmother probably are not going to file sharing. And unless they have tried to install these external applications by musical them, they have probably never disabled permissions from sources unknown box first.
But the beginning of the last week of new App Store Amazon may have changed. To install App Store Amazon on an Android device, you must first clear this permissions check box. While there may be no immediate risk with downloading apps from App Store the Amazon, he opens the door for users to enable the other informal - and therefore more risky - apps must be installed on their devices, from other sources.
"As soon as you flip the switch and go from the Android Market, which is the place where most people go, and then you put yourself at some risk,"a security researcher Charlie Miller told Wired in a previous interview."."
"The threat will persist as long as people continue to download software pirated networks peer-to-peer," analysts research threat Webroot Armando Orozco and Andrew Brandt said article. They say that sticking to the Android Market is your safest bet, but if you're still forced to go outside the box official for your applications, whether it's Amazon the App Store or another informal market, you should "carefully examine the permissions of the demandeset app does not install it if it is to have access to certain functions (like the)" (possibility to send SMS messages) that the application should not need access to the. »
But is not staying within the defeat of the Android Market the purpose of choosing a platform with a philosophy of "open"? If you want a more strict system, closed with stringent regulations on its applications through a review process, you can both buy an iPhone.
"Android users enabling music is not necessarily to piracy or the installation of applications from unsafe sources," says Alicia diVittorio, Lookout Mobile Security spokesman. "In fact, it's great to have another source for consumers download applications of a trade mark recognized as Amazon." Indeed, Amazon Appstore is not much different from Apple App Store: the two companies require an intense process of review and approval prior to any submitted developer of applications available to purchase.
Essentially, there is an inherent risk that comes with download apps for a device with an attitude of openness as the Android. Even the official market is susceptible to infiltration by malicious software, as evidenced in the corridor of malicious applications from the store this month. But, in an area relatively free and open, as the Android, the risk remains the admission price.
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