Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Malware on My Android Phone

beust.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 237 posts

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#191

Post by codethief »

goldcd wrote: post #140
Shivetya wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not use an Android phone, is there an easy means to restore one to factory condition? Is there a simple process to save and restore your phone to your PC/Mac similar to how Apple does it? (my father has an android phone and now I suddenly find myself curious about save/restore and how to find malware on his phone)

Yes - it's very easy to do a factory reset on your phone. No - There is no 'easy' way to store/restore the entire phone as I believe Apple does. (I had a miserable day doing this, when my old Pixel started playing up and had to migrate across to a replacement) - and this was best case when I had the two phones next to each other. Core 'google' stuff seems fine - either all tied to your account (e.g. contacts) or goog…

> No - There is no 'easy' way to store/restore the entire phone as I believe Apple does.

I think Android phones with the Google Services Framework installed do provide such a way. Alternatively, if you're using a custom ROM (like GrapheneOS on Pixel devices), you can use Seedvault[0] for full backups of your phone. It basically acts as a drop-in replacement of the backup service provided by Google.

[0]: https://github.com/seedvault-app/seedvault

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#192

Post by dariosalvi78 »

Sander_Marechal wrote: post #10
pw6hv wrote: post #3

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.

I have a Pixel 2. It scans QR codes with the default camera app just fine. When it detects a QR code you get a little popup you can click. It even works with regular 1D barcodes.

same here with One plus

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#193

Post by marcodiego »

benboozled wrote: post #179
JeremyNT wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or anything from FDroid. This is the best heuristic to apply not just for QR code scanning, but for pretty much everything. To avoid malware, avoid the Play Store. When using f-droid, also check out the project web site and git repo (at least in a cursory way, even if you can't fully audit the code, you can get a sense of who the developer is and the project's overall health from the commit log and issue tracker).

I'm largely in the dark when it comes to Android security. What makes F-Droid so much safer?

F-droid only accepts open-source apps. Apps with anti-features are also marked as such.

Play store should be only used for things that you can't work around with apps from f-droid.

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#194

Post by marcodiego »

Play store should allow to filter by license and anti-features. That would make it as usable as f-droid.

As an example: try to find a non-ad-infested flashlight app on play store, then try to find a single ad-infested flashlight app on f-droid.

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#195

Post by Rooster61 »

riphdd2020 wrote: post #141
tusharpandey13 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beware, the play store version shows full screen ads, auto redirects and needs contacts permissions.

Is there any proof for this, apart from those bad reviews? The blog mentions another (now removed app) with the package name com.qrcodescanner.barcodescanner, not the open source one at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.zxi... I believe these bad reviews might be a result of the malware app pushing bad reviews to the zxing app page on google play, using an in app 'rate this app?' -> low rating…

As noted above, I believe this to be the case. I had the other app and started receiving full page ads for it. Totally different developer, but same app name. I am no longer able to find that app in the play store.

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#196

Post by chopin24 »

jimmySixDOF wrote: post #58
rozab wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you say "OK Google, scan a QR code", it opens up Google Lens which does the job but only seems to be accessible through voice on my device

I also use Lense for QR and like any typical app just installed through Play and launch normally. Voice Assist is yet another privacy invasion vector imho, there are too many anecdotal first hand accounts of someone talking about fishing and suddenly getting banner adds for boat trips everywhere.

You don’t think it’s more likely that a person who talked about fishing also searched for fishing gear using Google? Or “Likes” fishing on Facebook? Or follows a fishing person on Twitter?

The technology and storage that would be required to parse non-device-directed speech doesn’t exist and wouldn’t be profitable since there are so many other reliable signals that are much cheaper.

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#197

Post by marcodiego »

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #184
benboozled wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm largely in the dark when it comes to Android security. What makes F-Droid so much safer?

It's not truly safer. It's just smaller, and only has open-source apps. So it's harder to hide malware, but still certainly possible (nobody checks most apps).

It seems much safer. F-droid apps are finely curated open-source apps and anti-features are marked and easily avoidable.

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#198

Post by abraham »

scatters wrote: post #104
rozab wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you say "OK Google, scan a QR code", it opens up Google Lens which does the job but only seems to be accessible through voice on my device

You can access it without voice, by opening Assistant (long-press Home, double-press Power, etc.) and then typing "Lens" into the search box. Ridiculously, there's no way that I can see to get an app shortcut icon to it.

The is a Lens app you can install to get an icon. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.ar....

Note: I work at Google but not on Android/Lens

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#199

Post by StavrosK »

prof18 wrote: post #13
pw6hv wrote: post #3

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.

QR Reader are load of everything. I went mad to find one a decent one for my parents’ android phone and apparently it doesn’t exists. So in a weekend I’ve created one without any kind of tracking, ads, permission, whatever. Here it is if you guys need one -> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.prof18.sec...

This looks great, can you add it to F-Droid? I tend to trust stuff that's on F-Droid more, even if I do end up installing them from the Play Store.

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#200

Post by jm_l »

Schlaefer wrote: post #183
TooCreative wrote: post #7

Strange article I unlocked my phone and two accidental clicks led me to agree to a dialog that my brain immediately registered as suspicious What type of dialog can pop up on your Android screen after unlocking and install "malware"? What is "malware" here? It looks like they mean an app from the play store? The next day, I picked up my phone and when I launched Chrome, I immediately noticed it was displaying a spamm…

> What type of dialog can pop up on your Android screen after unlocking and install "malware"? What is "malware" here? It looks like they mean an app from the play store? That would be the case if you enable sideloading, but that isn't mentioned in the article. Is it possible to install an app via popup without going through the store? This needs some clarification.

They mention at the bottom of the article that they did enable side loading, that's how the app was installed.
Post reply on HN