Once something is flagged, there’s a manual process for confirming the app is indeed malicious, reducing the risk of false positives. That way, Google can see straight away whether an app is misbehaving and flag it accordingly.Īnother smart feature is that Bouncer isn’t 100 percent automated. Bouncer runs every new application on Google’s cloud infrastructure and simulates how it’ll run on a device.
Google has actually been scanning apps whenever new malicious code is discovered, but Bouncer will automate the process, scanning for known spyware and trojans, too. The tool is a useful one to say the least, but it’s not enough.īouncer adds another level of security to the platform, automatically scanning new and existing apps for known bits of malicious code. Past that, Google’s always been good about removing malware from the market as soon as the company becomes aware of it, and in some cases, has even remotely wiped affected devices of malicious apps. In some cases, the reasons behind the permissions a developer asks for aren’t immediately obvious to the user, and it can be tough to check everything, especially to the novice user. Google sees its permissions system as a layer of security in and of itself, but permissions can actually be seen as a vulnerability. Sandboxing keeps one app from infiltrating another, with one very important exception: permissions. Originally, the Android market implemented three different methods for ridding the market of malware: sandboxing, permissions, and malware removal. That said, Google is adding a new security layer to the Android Market: codenamed Bouncer. Despite the fact that downloads of malicious apps are down 40 percent between the first and second half of 2011, seeing that 14,000, 30,000, or even 260,000 devices have been affected by this or that malicious app requires action. Granted, most of the numbers we see out of security software companies are inflated - including malicious apps from third-party sources and ignoring small download figures - but that’s not to say that we can just brush that dirt off our shoulders. Android malware has been an issue over the past year.
0 kommentar(er)
