121–130 of 237 posts
Note that there is no evidence the security model is broken here. The 'malware' didn't access any private data. It just popped up annoying ads, which it doesn't need special permissions to do.
Maybe that’s the problem?
Note that there is no evidence the security model is broken here. The 'malware' didn't access any private data. It just popped up annoying ads, which it doesn't need special permissions to do.
> It just popped up annoying ads, which it doesn't need special permissions to do. Maybe that’s the problem?
That is pretty hard to achieve, and no mobile or desktop platform really has it.
test
I've been a victim of that specific malware and I was wondering how on earth did it happen as I'm usually careful enough when it comes to security. I also had the barcode scanner app. I didn't go as far as the author and I did a factory reset.
The lesson here is not "oh look the author is stupid because they installed a shitty QR scanner app and didn't notice the obvious mistake". The lesson should be; even very experienced technical people fall onto the malware trap. We all have day-to-day problems, unexpected stuff happening, in short life doing its thing. We'll inevitably end up being victims of a scam that happens just the worst possible day of them al…
The barcode scanner wasn't any shitty app, it was the one that was recommended a long time ago by Google authenticator. I had left it installed on my phone and it must had had the dodgy update that got it banned from the app store.
This makes me think that it would be nice to be able too load "camera sensor scripts" in a similar way to GLSL for GPU, for filtering and analysis using hardware. (it might be possible, I am not an android developer)
The lesson here is not "oh look the author is stupid because they installed a shitty QR scanner app and didn't notice the obvious mistake". The lesson should be; even very experienced technical people fall onto the malware trap. We all have day-to-day problems, unexpected stuff happening, in short life doing its thing. We'll inevitably end up being victims of a scam that happens just the worst possible day of them al…
I took away another lesson: One of the early developers of Android doesn't replace his phone even after being absolutely certain it had malware. That kinda blows my mind.
The lesson here is not "oh look the author is stupid because they installed a shitty QR scanner app and didn't notice the obvious mistake". The lesson should be; even very experienced technical people fall onto the malware trap. We all have day-to-day problems, unexpected stuff happening, in short life doing its thing. We'll inevitably end up being victims of a scam that happens just the worst possible day of them al…
I've had the same issue as the author of the post. The barcode scanner wasn't any shitty app, it was the one that was recommended a long time ago by Google authenticator. I had left it installed on my phone and it must had had the dodgy update that got it banned from the app store.
That's where I remember it from, thanks! However I think there's some confusion here: the one the blog mentions is not https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.zxi... (github based, relatively trustworthy looking, recommended by Google Authenticator back in the day), it's the now removed qrcodescanner app: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:38t1gW...
I think those bad reviews on https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.zxi... are because the malware probably used the zxing qr library, and there might be traces left in it, or these users are just confused (or the malware app deliberately pointed low star reviewers to the github competitor app in the play store). As others have stated, this github app with the bad reviews hasn't been updated for a long time.
If the malware is also in https://github.com/zxing/zxing , I really hope they do a postmortem to explain how. The fact that https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.zxi... still exists though, while the app mentioned in the blog has been removed by google, makes me think the zxing app is clean.
A QR code reader was the problem then... I am an Android user since the dawn of time and I was so surprised when my wife showed me that on her iPhone the QR code reader is embedded in her camera app... I wonder why it is not the same in any version of Android that I have used (now I am on Android One). This plus the native support for CardDav and CalDav are pushing me to try iOS next time I have to change my phone.