ANDROID users are once again being put on alert about the security of apps they download from the Google Play Store. Here’s what everyone should know before making their next download.
Android is one of the most used pieces of software in the world, with over two billion devices running the Google mobile OS. And for this huge global userbase, the go-to place to download apps for their Android device is the Google Play Store – with stats from Statista saying in 2020 alone there were over 108billion Play Store downloads. That’s a staggering amount. But as Android fans who keep a close eye on security news will know, experts often issue alerts about dangerous Play Store apps to beware of.
And in yet another Android warning security news portal CyberNews has revealed a study looking at the top apps on the Google Play Store which ask for dangerous permissions.
The research analysed the top 1,020 Android apps found on the Google Play Store based on number of installs.
And out of this huge sample size CyberNews found over a third (36 percent) of analysed apps wanted to use an Android device’s camera.
Enabling this permission can have adverse effects if an attacker catches wind of this and then uses the camera to take photos and record videos.
This can be done via malicious applications which haven’t even been granted this permission, just taking advantage of other ones which have.
While just shy of one in ten (eight percent) of the most popular Android apps on the Play Store requested permissions to make direct calls to a user’s phone contacts.
CyberNews did not specifically name drop any apps, but they said the app categories where the most dangerous permissions were requested were communication, lifestyle and maps and navigation apps.
Speaking about their findings, CyberNews said: “The percentage of apps that needlessly ask for unrestricted access to our whereabouts, device usage, and communications is highly alarming, if not objectionable.
“And with so many Android apps requesting so much access to our data, what happens when that data gets into the wrong hands? It’s almost every week that we hear about a new cybercrime campaign that was able to infiltrate another massively popular app on the Google Play store and expose the data of tens of millions of unsuspecting people.
