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Android weakness allows hackers to record phone calls
A VULNERABILITY in Android smartphones allows hackers to record phone conversations and monitor location data.
According to scientists from North Carolina State University, this can be done on Samsung, Motorola and HTC Google handsets because they contain code that exposes powerful capabilities to untrusted apps.
Apparently apps can bypass security defences that ask users to give their permission before an app is given access to personal information. The code is found in the interfaces and services that handset makers add to enhance Google's stock firmware.
"We believe these results demonstrate that capability leaks constitute a tangible security weakness for many Android smartphones in the market today," researchers wrote in a paper due to be presented at next year's Network and Distributed System Security Symposium. "Particularly, smartphones with more pre-loaded apps tend to be more likely to have explicit capability leaks."
The researchers found that the HTC Evo device was the worst, leaking eight functions. Right behind it was the HTC Legend with six leaks. Google's Nexus One and Nexus S each contained one leak.
Android's security credentials have been under the spotlight lately. Yesterday, F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen said the Android operating system could be "the [Windows] XP of the future" in terms of security weaknesses.
Hypponen told The INQUIRER that Android's security weakness will increase due to its position as the most popular operating system (OS) for mobile phones.
According to Hypponen, Android is "more open to different risks" because it is itself such an open OS. He said, "If you look at the growth of Android it's growing enormously and this reminds me of where we've been over the last 10 years."
"Windows XP is the weakest computer OS because it's the biggest - it's going to be the easiest to attack. I'm afraid Android will be the Windows XP of the future so it's likely to repeat."
However, with no disrespect to Mikko Hypponen, The INQUIRER must still observe that Microsoft's Windows XP is vulnerable primarily because it is fundamentally insecure by design, and that Google has an opportunity to avoid this in its Android operating system. µ
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I don't know where TDR came up with his "Facts" but they are absolute nonsense. Windows 7 have more than 400,000 know pieces of malware including over 200,000 viruses. There are only 3 pieces of malware known in the wild for Mac OS X and they are trojans which require active authentication from than user and no know viruses.
Before someone pulls out the marketshare argument, remember that OS X's marketshare is much larger than OS 9, which had thousands of viruses. Even the Coleco Adam, which most of the readers of this blog will not even know, had over 35,000 viruses to which it was vulnerable.
I would give TDR some of the technical reasons why this is real but I do not believe he/she has the requisite basic knowledge to understand it.
Whatever problems android has Ios has 1000 times worse. Please apple is shit how dare you talk about android.
Keep smoking that buddy, that sure is powerful stuff, but don't let the cops catch you, or your dealer.
It's rare though that people have weird visions of numbers when that high, I thought only mathematicians had such trips.
To put Windows XP security in context:
Windows 7 ~ 180 vulerabilities
Windows XP ~ 450 vulnerabilities
OS-X ~ 1600 vulnerabilities
SUSE 10 Linux ~ 3500 vulnerabilities
So it is actually far more secure than the competition. Source secunia.org