Apps are becoming an increasing problem for users as they silently steal critical information about people and do so without their consent, undermining their privacy and potentially putting the owner in harm’s way. There are problems like cell phone spy apps and android spyware on run and users are getting weary of it all. Apps from third parties and even Google Play are notorious for being bugged with malware or spyware or having very unusual permissions that have nothing to do with the app itself, once on your phone they help themselves to servings of your photo’s, contact lists and even call logs. Plating it all up and sending it to a known or unknown person.
For those people who are completely unaware of what the permissions for an app are, it’s not so hard to understand. Every time you visit a website to download an app or get an app from a friend, you are prompted with a screen which is to inform you about which sort of information the app being installed, needs to access in order to function on the device. It will explain that for example, a music player will need to access your external storage and media files together to function together with access to internet. Everything else on the phone things which the app has not requested for permission to access will not be accessible to that application. For example the music player won’t be able to see your contact list or access the information.
This is what users are supposed to read out clearly and understand before installing the app because this is where most the problems stem from. However studies indicate that the majority of smartphone users don’t bother looking at permission and go ahead to install the app right away. This does not necessarily mean that people are impatient or hasty but can also be related to the fact that the permission prompt itself does not reveal much information and users don’t always get a clear understanding of what the app will access, if anything at all.
For example several times app permission will mention that the application to be installed will be using the local network connection, but it won’t say what the connection will be used for, ambiguities such as this one induce users to take the chance. You can seek the help of a security advisor, which is a function offered with many security applications or anti virus apps, and serves to inform you about what a permission is about or what the app needs to access, though this tool still provides only a meager bit more information. This is still largely insufficient to explicitly illustrate precisely why, say, the music player needs access to the call history information.
In fact even if someone could understand exactly which information they would be sharing with an app every single time that they got a new app, they would still be prone to being attacked or having information stolen due to the fact that the permission protocol itself is flawed. Various researches have been carried out regarding the matter and in one such study recently in February, the results found were astounding. A test application was developed which was capable of accessing photos stored on one device. The aim was to transmit photo’s that are stored on the target device to a remote server, the only permission needed was that to access internet from the device, and with it the data was easily transferred. The reason why this vulnerability exists is because the permission system was initially designed to function on devices which used external storage to store photos and media. In today’s more memory equipped smartphone’s this function exists as a loophole.
Author Bio:
Natalia David, an author significantly contributes towards PC security Software, cell phone spy and android spy (http://www.cellspyexpert.com/