It really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that there are malicious people out there who are coding all sorts of things in order to gain access to your private data or just generally be destructive to your life. According to a report from Lookout, there is a number of apps that have recently been removed from the Play Store which contained the malicious code; Brain Test.
The specifics of the code are a little unclear at the moment, but what is clear is that the apps in question (shown below) are rather persistent. They attempt to gain root access to your device and even it you’re sharp enough to attempt a factory reset, that may not be the last of it.
While this may be scary to some users; the fact remains that these apps were very low in reputation, low install numbers and from developers that had zero recognition on the Play Store. What this really means for the “average user” is that the risk of being exposed to these harmful apps is still extremely low and you need to have installed them to be at risk, they’re not like the various vulnerabilities that have been found over the last 12 months such as Stagefright.
With the volume of apps on the Play Store and the extremely low number that have been found to contain the code in question, the largest risk to your mobile device security still remains to be installing apps from unknown sources which you must specifically override Android security settings to do. Being cautious and smart about your app installs is still the best protection you can have.
Do you use Antivirus of any sort on your mobile device?
Can’t wait for marshmallow deny except when needed!
I just use the antivirus built into Google Play Services. It seems to work pretty well, in the sense that I’ve never had issues with malicious apps messing with my phone.