Malicious Malware Found in Google Play Apps and more on Tech Talk With Craig Peterson today on Maine's WGAN Saturday Show [10-5-19]

I rail on this all the time and I will climb on my soap box again! Android can not be trusted.  It was not designed to be secure and Android, is not Android, is not Android.  Well this week it was unveiled that the Google Play store was full of Apps that contained or were malicious malware, listen in for more on this and why you should use a more trustworthy mobile platform.

For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

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Related Articles:

Google Play “Malware” Store -- Poor App Management Platform

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Automated Machine-Generated Transcript:

Craig 0:12
Hi, everybody, Craig Peterson here on WGAN. And online at Craig Peterson.com. That is Peterson with an S-O-N. Well, you know, I'm always telling people not to use Android just don't do it. Friends don't let friends whose hand droid and it's not because I'm so in love with Apple or iOS, although I do like what they've been doing. And full disclosure here I was on Apple's advisory board for three years. And there were, I think about a dozen of us. And we are all companies that are Apple, AC, and so part of the apples consultants network. So it was kind of fun to work with Cupertino for a while. But the reason I am so anti Android goes back to two major things. Number one is well, three things, maybe four. Number one is it was never designed with security in mind. It was designed by young kid and was purchased by Google. Now they've Yeah, they've made some changes, they made some improvements. But also remember that Android is all based on Java. And Java is one of the biggest security problems we have buried. So there you go. Number one, why use an insecure operating system as the base and somehow expect it to be secure, it's just not going to be it just can't be. And in fact, it is not. So that's number one. Number two is because it's a free operating system, many handset, many factors are using it. Now we're talking about a handset manufacturer, it means like Samsung making a smartphone, or HTC, or Huawei, or you name it, even cars now come with Android embedded in them, that is controlling the sound system, maybe the heating cooling system. And maybe heaven forbid, the braking system and the tracking systems and other things, which it is doing in some cars out there. Now because it's in so many different devices, each device manufacturer has to go and do something that I think is really a problem. That is the device manufacturers have to select hardware, and then get or make device drivers for the hardware, and then bolted into Android. And then they go the next step and they sell these devices to you know, carrier like a Verizon or at&t etc. Well, the carrier now makes changes to the Android operating system, they changed the way it looks away It feels. So whereas in the apple world, there are dozens of different configurations in the hardware side that Apple has to worry about. In the Android side, there are thousands of them. And it isn't Google's responsibility to keep track of all of them, or release patches. for them. Google does not do that. It is frankly, the responsibility of the manufacturer of the handset or the tablet or the car or whatever Android is embedded into. It is the responsibility of that company to now update the android operating systems. So in order to do that, each handset manufacturer has to get new device drivers put their device drivers in because remember, you have to update them because the devices have probably changed. And we know the operating system has changed. And oftentimes the interface between the operating system the device drivers makes gets changed as well it makes a difference. And so now they have to get it recorded, they have to take that device driver, they have to integrate it and they have to integrate all the other dozens of device drivers. So little work with their handset. And then they have to provide that upstream to the cellular phone company or with our car manufacturer, who then has to go and make changes to the user interface so that it has their logo looks the way they wanted to look. It's acting as an embedded system instead of a million interactive tablets system, whatever it might be. How often do you think that actually happens?

Now, if you are someone who is using maybe the most popular device out there, maybe you've got the latest Samsung XYZYG gig, and that would you give you something you just absolutely love, and it's fantastic. And Samsung is sold them by the hundreds of quadrillions throughout the universe, well, then you probably will get updates for a while. But then after a few years, those updates are going to slow down and stop eventually. And at that point, now you are left on your own. And in many cases, it can be as little as six months, I have seen major security releases come out for Android, that did not make it onto a handset for over a year for a friend of mine, which is absolutely inexcusable. versus what happens with Apple, with iOS with the apple phones is Apple has control over the physical devices over the device drivers that are needed for those physical devices, over the user interface, etc. And so Apple is really, really good at providing security updates and fixes and performance improvements and new features. And they don't charge for any of those either, which is nice. Now you're saying Craig, I can't afford an iPhone, right? I have a friend that just bought the newest iPhone and I was like 1200 bucks. That's just crazy. I agree with you. Okay, that is a lot of money. And I I use my iPhones, I keep my iPhones until I need a new one, or someone else on my plan needs a new one. So they get my hand me down, and I get the new phone. I understand that right because it is costly. But here's a suggestion that I think will work for you. And that is by an older iPhone. So get something that's a couple of generations older, it's still going to be supported by Apple for at least another four or five years, maybe longer. And then you have something you know is going to get the security update. Now it may not get the latest new feature update. But it's very, very likely to get all the latest security updates. So that's what I advise people to do get that Apple iPhone, get rid of the Android The next time you do an upgrade, and just get an iPhone, get an older one don't get a brand new one. A lot of carriers have great deals on iPhones where they're 100 bucks for an iPhone, that's not gonna be the latest, greatest, most wonderful iPhone. But at 100 bucks has hard to go wrong. And some of them will even sell you the iPhone at a low price on a very, very short contract like less than a year. So keep that in mind. So let's get into this. I said all of that. So I can say this. Google desperately needs to curb the spread of Android malware. That's how this article starts at The Next Web. The Next Web com of course, I have it up on my website as well. Craig Peterson calm. In September alone, researchers uncovered a total of 107 too infected apps on the Play Store The worst part, these apps had racked up over 335 million installs. By the time they were detected by security experts. That's another thing Apple's been really good at. They have been monitoring all of the software that is being built to us in the Google apps store. And Google in the Apple App Store. Google has not been good at that ad were accounted for staggering 300 million installs. And this is according to data compiled by he set. Other types of malware found on the Play Store now this is Google's official store people. This isn't where people have gone when used a rooted phone or gone to a different store. This is Google's official store. They found subscription spam, hidden add text, premium subscription software, 57 instances of software with hidden and

the list goes on. It's crazy subscription scam 20 million plus hidden ads, 14 million plus texting, premium texting. They found 472,000. It is absolutely amazing. So obviously Apple has had some problems in the past. They tend to get them fixed very, very quickly Google, late to the game as usual with Android. And it's a shame but Android isn't their big moneymaker. What do you expect? All right. When we get back we're going to talk about some AI powered X ray systems to really want that. Hey, you listening to Craig Peterson FWGAN and online at Craig Peterson calm

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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