Droid 3 review, Apple wins injunction against Samsung, malware tapping your phone?

[RockdaMan]

Interesting stuff that popped up today:


Droid 3 review: A physical keyboard and a 'big beautiful screen'.

Judge sides with Apple in Australia:

The Cupertino company argued its patent case against Samsung in front of Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett on Monday, accusing Samsung of violating 10 patents and asking for an injunction to bar Galaxy Tab sales in the country. According to Bloomberg, the injunction was issued and Samsung has agreed to comply: the company will stop advertising the device in Australia and won't sell it there until the court gives its green light.

An Android Trojan that records your phone calls and uploads them to a bad guy's server?

today we have received an Android package to our collection and observed that this piece of malware walks an additional mile by having a neat configuration and has a capability to record the telephonic conversation the infected victim makes. In one of our earlier blogs, we have demonstrated how a Trojan logs all the details of incoming/outgoing calls and call duration in a text file. This Trojan is more advanced as it records the conversation itself in “amr” format.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

An Android Trojan that records your phone calls and uploads them to a bad guy's server?

I think I've gotten/made about 4 actual phone calls on my smartphone in the last 2 years...and maybe 4x that many wrong numbers. That guy's server won't get much action from me

[boswd]

LookOut Mobile is your friend, and it's Free.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

An Android Trojan that records your phone calls and uploads them to a bad guy's server?

FROM ANDROID CENTERAL
Not a single instance of this malware was reported from coming from an app in the Android Market.<sic> That's not to say malicious apps haven't made it into the Market before -- it's happened, (more...)

In addition to the post above, this theoretical trojan could not record the phone call unless a user granted the app permission. Folks should pay attention to permissions requested and if an app is asking for rights it doesn't need do not install.

It's not just malware that tries to access users data. Apps like tweeter, Facebook, Goodreads, Qik, etc... require access to sensitive data--contacts and such. A user should never blindly install an app. Look at what an app is trying to access and decide if they trust the company enough with your data before installing.


Last point its the user that's the best defense against malware.


=X=

[RockdaMan]

You're right X:

the trojan has not been spotted in the wild, but rather on a "malware collection channel,"

and if it did make it to the store:

Google's remote kill switch can clean malware-ridden apps obtained from the store off infected handsets