When you're the Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing for one of the richest and most successful technology companies in the world, chances are that you've forged yourself a pretty successful career and people will listen to what you have to say. Technology lovers will be more than familiar with Phil Schiller - who fills the marketing SVP role nicely at Apple - due to his numerous appearances on stage during product keynotes, but he has now taken to his Twitter timeline to share the latest developments in mobile security.
Android is constantly a target for those looking to spread malware, and the latest - discovered by Russian security outfit Doctor Web - is probably one of the more significant to date. Arriving in the form of a trojan, it can aid the loathed Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, while also housing the ability to send spam SMS messages and receive commands from the criminals behind them.
Year over year, we see reports with scary titles like “nearly all mobile malware is targeting Android” and “472% increase in Android malware since last quarter”. There is no doubt that mobile malware is on the rise, especially on Android, but the issue is overhyped. Just as they did late in 2011, IT security firms are creating FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) about the security of Android by releasing reports that paint a bleak picture of the platform.
If you happened to have saved up all of your hard earned dollars in order to eventually get rid of your virus magnet Windows-based PC and move across to a gorgeous but rather expensive OS X toting Mac, hoping to never worry about malware or viruses again, then it may be time to update your views and stop listening to internet chatter about how Macs can never get infections.
With a slew of great new smartphones, tablets and even a new operating system in the form of Jelly Bean (4.1), Android has received plenty of good press over the past couple of months. In fact, there's been such a buzz about Google's mobile OS, that it's easy to forget just how many reported malware outbreaks threaten to jeopardize everything the Web company is attempting to build.
Of all the modern smartphone operating systems, Android is particularly known for being more heavily targeted by malware. It’s not a surprise, really, considering it’s a more open platform where malicious apps can make their way to your smartphone not just by installing things from unofficial sources, but also from the Google Play Store*.
We'd love to post only positive news here regarding the fast-moving world of technology, but unfortunately, it's becoming a case of another day, another malware discovered where Google's Android is concerned, and the latest one is arguably the most alarming of all. Because while free apps often allow users to sample apps before paying for the full version, the latest chapter in the Android malware debacle actually charges users for the privilege of using free apps.
Given its position as the most widely-used mobile software within the smartphone market, it’s only natural that Android yields a significant amount of blog space, but while the tech community offers much praise for Google’s OS, Android also generates its fair share of negative press – notably with regards to outbreaks of malware.
Last week, we reported of a strain of malware in the wild that, although described innocently as Rovio Mobile's latest addition to the Angry Birds series, was indeed the Legacy Native (LeNa) malware first seen last fall, and has the potential to remotely gain root access to Android users' devices.
The regularity in which malware manages to keep infiltrating Android devices is gradually becoming something of a spectator sport; that is, of course, unless you happen to use one yourself.
