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Stealthy Google Play Apps Recorded Calls and Stole Emails (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Ars Technica:
Google has expelled 20 Android apps from its Play marketplace after finding they contained code for monitoring and extracting users' e-mail, text messages, locations, voice calls, and other sensitive data. The apps, which made their way onto about 100 phones, exploited known vulnerabilities to root devices running older versions of Android.... As a result, the apps were capable of surreptitiously accessing sensitive data stored, sent, or received by at least a dozen other apps, including Gmail, Hangouts, LinkedIn, and Messenger. The now-ejected apps also collected messages sent and received by Whatsapp, Telegram, and Viber, which all encrypt data in an attempt to make it harder for attackers to intercept messages while in transit... To conceal their surveillance capabilities, the apps posed as utilities for cleaning unwanted files or backing up data.
Google reports that the malicious apps also had these functions:
Google reports that the malicious apps also had these functions:
- Call recording
- VOIP recording
- Recording from the device microphone
- Location monitoring
- Taking screenshots
- Taking photos with the device camera(s)
- Fetching device information and files
- Fetching user information (contacts, call logs, SMS, application-specific data)
12 hours later an antivirus provider reported two more Google Play apps could surreptitiously steal text messages by downloading a malicious plugin -- and that the apps had already been downloaded at least 100,000 times.
Two things wwould fix this:
1. Instead of being "Google Play" or "Everything else" the user should be able to say: I trust Google Play, F-Droid, and APK Pure only.
2. All the handset makers need to provide support for Vanilla Stock Android VIA Lineage OS or Similar. Cough up Driver APKs, and stop allowing handset makers to bake Malicious software like ADUPS in the System area.
This means no matter how much skill Android users possess Android users can't usefully investigate and fix the leveraged vulnerabilities themselves should they wish to do so or hire someone to do so on their behalf. The most they could do is write an exploit which demonstrates the bug, report the bug with the exploit program, and hope the proprietor takes corrective action. Upgrading to another version of proprietary software is no real fix as it could (at best) mean trading in fixes for these bugs in for other bugs the users are prevented from usefully investigate and fix. The user being rather helpless to improve their own situation or help their community all along the way. This is how proprietary (read: non-free, user-subjugating) software treats its users.
All complex software has bugs, proprietary OSes and apps are no exception, but as the GNU Project points out, "The difference between free software and nonfree software is in whether the users have control of the program or vice versa. It's not directly a question of what the program does when it runs. However, in practice nonfree software is often malware, because the developer's awareness that the users would be powerless to fix any malicious functionalities tempts the developer to impose some.". Since there aren't any free software tracker (none might be possible so long as the phone network insists on proprietary control over the user's device) this is also an opportunity to learn to say no to proprietary control and do without a tracker (and, yes, particularly given the context of this thread it is proper to call them 'trackers' and not 'cell phones' or 'mobile phones', names which help obscure the main reason organizations want users to get these devices and install apps in the first place).
Digital Citizen
Sorry to trouble you, but, um ... what are the apps? What are they named?