Android

London, October 31, 2019 – A popular Android keyboard app, ai.type, downloaded more than 40 million times and included in the Google Play app store, has been caught making millions of unauthorized purchases of premium digital content, researchers at mobile technology company Upstream report. The app has been delivering millions of invisible ads and fake clicks, while delivering genuine user data about real views, clicks and purchases to ad networks. ai.type carries out some of its activity hiding under other identities[1], including disguising itself to spoof popular apps such as Soundcloud. The app’s tricks have also included a spike in suspicious activity once removed from the Google Play store.

London, October 17th, 2019 – Snaptube, a popular Android smartphone video app which claims some 40 million users, has been caught making millions of suspicious transactions without the knowledge of its users. The Snaptube app features the same piece of developer software code, Mango SDK, that was at the center of the Vidmate expose earlier this year - when another popular video app from a Chinese developer was found to be conducting mass scale advertising and premium services’ subscription fraud. Snaptube also displays a common traffic pattern and similar URLs and domains as those reported with Vidmate.

BRACKNELL, UK. 21st FEBRUARY 2019 - The use of Android tablets and handhelds are on the rise in business but security remains a concern, according to the latest research from Panasonic Business. On average, 72% of tablets and handheld devices in businesses (excluding mobile telephones) use the Android operating system. And with 60% of device buyers saying Android was still being integrated into their organisations, the number of devices is expected to rise with the majority seeing growth for the next three years.

The top three benefits of Android over other operating systems were said to be flexibility (59%), security (58%) and affordability (52%). 

Introduction

What differentiates iOS on Apple’s devices from Android?

The answer to that is alarmingly simple because it’s the simplicity of the OS itself. The reason I’m bringing up this is that Android market has a lot of saturation and as such comes in as being decentralized. The trouble with that is that the device UX differs from manufacturer to manufacturer. This saturation is often a cause for controversy because Apple uses this to their advantage in promoting their OS adoption rate. But unlike Apple, Android as an OS is adopted by lots of manufacturers, big and small ones. Therein comes the philosophy of a centralized device from the stables of Google themselves named the Pixel. In many ways, it is Google’s answer to the dictatorship of Apple’s iPhones and their device philosophies. 

27 June 2017 – WatchGuard®’s  latest quarterly Internet Security Report reveals that despite an overall drop in malware detection, Linux malware made up more than 36 percent of the top threats identified in Q1 2017. The increased presence of Linux/Exploit, Linux/Downloader and Linux/Flooder attacks highlights the need to protect Linux-based IoT devices and Linux servers from the internet with layered defences.

Other key findings from the Q1 2017 report include: