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Malware on My Android Phone

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Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#201

Post by jm_l »

Maxburn wrote: post #190
thatguy0900 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" I would expect Google Play Protect to at least flag any app it finds on my phone that is not on their store. Such an app is not necessarily malware, but it should certainly be flagged." seems like Google is between a rock and a hard place here, they already catch so much heat over their treatment of third party app stores there would certainly be a lot of outrage over this if they started doing it

Very true, but instead of reaching in and removing your app giving a message saying "we pulled this app from the store for such and such reasons, maybe you want to review it" would be pretty nice.

I believe that actually does happen if you installed through Google Play Store, but in this case the app was sideloaded onto the device.

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#202

Post by Schlaefer »

jm_l wrote: post #200
Schlaefer wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If that would be the case what is the point of the article? Of course Google Play Protect shouldn't interfere with an side-loaded app. One major reason for side-loading (after giving explicit consent and ignoring all the warnings associated) is to allow applications Google wouldn't approve.

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#203

Post by rarefied_tomato »

slezyr wrote: post #49
prof18 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Or anything from FDroid. I use Barcode Scanner ( https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.google.zxing.client.andr... ) as it scans even damaged codes.

Error correction is inherent in processing the QR code itself. That is, QR codes are generated with varying levels of redundancy, and any reader must be able to interpret the Reed-Solomon code.

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#204

Post by pwg »

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.

On my Moto E4 (Android 7.1.1) the default Android camera app also reads QR codes. But nothing in the app. nor app. help actually tells anyone that it will do this. The only way one discovers it is by pointing the camera at a QR code to see what happens, and realizing that the app just decoded the QR code it was viewing.

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#205

Post by scatters »

abraham wrote: post #198
scatters wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

OK, I've done that. It's pretty crazy that the app takes up 40MB just to add an icon to my apps menu.

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#206

Post by sloshnmosh »

Another problem is with the cheap Android devices that come with a preinstalled rootkit disguised as the firmware update app. (fota.apk)

It uses LUA scripts to install apps remotely and can grant any app any permission and run as system level through reflection.

The government funded LifeLine phones that are given to the poor, disabled and veterans are all infected with this malware.

Here is an excellent technical analysis of the rootkit:

https://wuffs.org/blog/digitime-tech-fota-backdoors

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#207

Post by crossroadsguy »

j1elo wrote: post #69

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…

As an iPhone user and an Android developer my lessons learnt, over the time, are:

1. Do not trust Google to vet the apps in the play store. They won't; they don't even try.

2. Those shiny Play Protect and whatnot postured around by Google are practically utter useless bs/bloat

3. Stick to famous, really famous apps from the Play Store - as in well known - e.g. Facebook, Netflix, Evernote etc (you will be tracked of course, you won't be hacked - you pay this price by using Googled Android anyway)

4. If you couldn't find a well known app on Play Store - head to https://www.f-droid.org

5. Do not, just do not download any other app on your phone (treat it as a no exception rule) unless you know what you are doing and possibly can look at the code - find something decent as an APK from GitHub et al.

6. Be very miserly when it comes to doling out permissions to apps. Your default should be "no".

7. Privacy (not really) and safety are just superficial polish by Google on Android OS - their core and only focus developing the OS is: making it as much of an ad platform as they can and on top of that how to get a bigger and bigger cut of the overall ad revenue with every release.

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#208

Post by prox »

growt wrote: post #110
3pt14159 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That would be reasonable if the phone owner was likely the victim of some targeted attack (beeing politician or something similar). But if it's just regular malware that was installed with a drive by download, I would trust the android security model that much.

I wouldn’t. Some malware can hide a lot deeper than a factory reset can erase.

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#209

Post by ce4 »

FriedrichN wrote: post #54
ce4 wrote: post #5

I trust the F-Droid store more due to its curated (FOSS-software-only/no-trackers) maintainer based model and default to them if there's an app that I need, especially simple stuff that tends to mostly be adware on the playstore

On a side note, my bank is now forcing me to use their app which can only be downloaded from the Play Store (which I will never install). When I complained they told me it's because they think it's more secure than their current method which is a card reader, I tried to explain to them the average phone is teeming with malware, but they simply wouldn't believe me. I am currently looking for a new bank.

Thats happening a lot, switching your bank wont help at least not for long. I guess "[x] force smartphone users to use the app" is part of some security checklist now.

I got a workaround by switching to desktop mode, when that didnt work anymore by using Fennec (FF mobile fork with relaxed addon support) + useragent switcher

Re: Malware on My Android Phone

#210

Post by johnx123-up »

Cyykratahk wrote: post #151
georgyo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using this one since the Android 1.0: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.zxi... What's interesting, is that despite the app not being updated since 2018, open source, and containing no ads or tracking the reviews are saying it recently became adware. Searching for barcode scanner in the app store brings you to a horrible sea of ad supported crap ware, and it seems like that crap ware w…

Yeah, something's fishy. I scraped the latest 1000 reviews (coincidentally almost exactly 12 months worth). The "adware" reviews are all very recent with large amounts of votes. They seem to start on December 18, with 162 1-star reviews in the following 25 days -- more than all the 1-star reviews in the 6 months prior. I wouldn't be surprised if these reviews are not only automated spam, but are constantly being dele…

Curious: How did you do that? (scrape + chart)
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