Types of security threats in Android OS

• internet security
• June 6, 2013
• By: David Frankk
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Android is known for its app store having more than 800,000 apps (both paid and free) including utility apps, games, as according to the stats of Feb 2013. Most of the apps are uploaded directly into the store making it more vulnerable to attacks on Android devices and putting the user’s privacy at stake. A report shows that 136 out of 149 known threats for mobile accounts to Android while iOS and Windows remains threat-free.
Android is the largest market share holder with 52% of global smartphone subscriber-base and having widest range of mobile device platforms hosting this OS. Android also holds the largest app-store in terms of number of applications available to its users with more than 800,000 apps in Google Play, its app store. A recent study described the popularity of Android with having more than 48 billion app downloads from Google Play. However, another research conducted by F-secure labs states that prevalence of malware on various smartphone OSs is concentrated on Android as compared to other OSs.

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There was a rise of 50% of malware for Android last year and its state has only worsened since then till now, making it the most vulnerable smartphone OS of today. All of these malware affect the users in one way or the other thus causing them privacy or monetary losses. Some of the threats are discussed below:

• Premium service abusers: These types of malware take over the control of the user for managing their bills and subscribed services. Installation of these applications deliberately subscribes the user for premium services without their knowledge and eventually increases the bill. Text message sent to premium numbers could be one of the examples where extra amount is charged from the user sending the message.
• Adware: Adwares work in a similar fashion to in-app advertisement. However, they are displayed as a pop-up notification and users do not have any control on such event. Moreover, these apps de-limits the authority of user to grant permission and adwares access the personal data like contact list stored on the phone. This could hamper the privacy of the user and replicate all the data of phone on remote server, if such functionality is embedded in an adware.
• Malicious Downloaders: These kinds of malware affect the monetary control of the users and increase their bill for subscription and/or downloading of unnecessary as well as paid apps. These malwares, just like adware, do not ask for the permission from the user and silently turn on the downloading for other applications or malware which could affect the privacy as well as the bill for that duration.
• Rooters: These types of malware are rare to be found in the app store however, these are the most lethal among the all. Rooting apps allow a hacker to take over the control of the device remotely and allows them to root the device to perform any task which can be performed by the user. User loses all the manual control over the device and any overriding or prevention operation fails to roll back the device.