Malware in unexpected places now

[Admiral_Thrawn_1]

Wanted to give everyone a heads up heard this morning that many of the non Apple Smartphones are now infected by Malware courtesy of simply downloading one of the popular flashlight apps for example. The top flashlight apps often are about 2MB to download when to turn a light on and off you just need about a KB sized app. Guess what fills all that unneeded space in the Apps...

So yeah sounds like a problem since about half a Billion people have downloaded the viral flashlight apps alone, not to mention how many of the other potentialy malicious  Apps on on the app stores. Some people started noticing their contacts lists, and GPS oddly activating on their own so it got looked into. Apparently everything including credit card data is being stolen through such malware and only way to get it off the devices is to get full factory reset done on the infected devices.

Reason Apple AppStore has been spared is because Apple screens every single app and update before it hits their AppStore, the rest of the App stores out there usually do not check what goes into their stores so an app can have some unwanted features.

[OgreMkV]

Yep, one of them also installs other apps on the phone, filling it with apps in about a week.

[MrDeaf]

google's vouching program, or whatever it is called, for its app store has been proven to be woefully lacking.

[TTK_Aegis]

...there's demand for a flashlight app? 

[Admiral_Thrawn_1]

3 minutes ago, TTK_Aegis said:

...there's demand for a flashlight app? 

I guess some phones do not have an app to activate the flashlight, perhaps it's just a camera flash, so they need an app that keeps that light on? 

[TTK_Aegis]

Just now, Admiral_Thrawn_1 said:

I guess some phones do not have an app to activate the flashlight, perhaps it's just a camera flash, so they need an app that keeps that light on? 

Huh... I guess that's possible. I've always had an option under the pulldown menu where things like airplane mode and rotation lock live, but I've also never had a budget, low end Android so maybe that's where the issue is? 

Or maybe people don't know about that menu since it's not explicitly explained anywhere I ever saw. 

[MrDeaf]

1 hour ago, TTK_Aegis said:

Huh... I guess that's possible. I've always had an option under the pulldown menu where things like airplane mode and rotation lock live, but I've also never had a budget, low end Android so maybe that's where the issue is? 

Or maybe people don't know about that menu since it's not explicitly explained anywhere I ever saw. 

that's not a standard feature on android. It might be implemented as an add on for manufacturer custom builds, so it will depend on your particular make of smartphone.

for instance, my asus zenphone has a preinstalled flashlight app, but it's not part of the drop down menu.

[TTK_Aegis]

10 minutes ago, MrDeaf said:

that's not a standard feature on android. It might be implemented as an add on for manufacturer custom builds, so it will depend on your particular make of smartphone.

for instance, my asus zenphone has a preinstalled flashlight app, but it's not part of the drop down menu.

Learn something new every day! Mine has it pretty much exactly where it was on the iPhone.