Nearly 10 million Android devices have Potentially Harmful Apps says Annual Android security report

According to the latest Android annual security report, more than 735 million devices from over 200 manufacturers have received platform security updates in 2016. The annual Android security report looks at data on Potentially Harmful Apps (PHAs) across Android devices. It also explains how the OS checks apps for unsafe behaviour and provide statistics on the state of software updates for Android devices.

If you are an Android user, you would know that Google releases monthly Android security updates and has been doing so for devices running Android 4.4.4 and up.

While half of devices at the end of 2016 did not receive a platform security update last year, the security team is working to update and streamline the program so that it is easier for manufacturers to push security updates.

The team also revealed that Android’s ‘Verify Apps’ feature conducted 750 million daily checks last year which is a significant update from 450 million the year before. The report also mentioned that the percentage of devices with PHAs went up in 2016 however the overall number was still low.

About 0.71 percent of all Android devices had PHAs installed at the end of 2016, which was 0.5 percent in the beginning of 2015. This means that out of the total 1.4 billion Android users nearly 10 million devices have potentially harmful applications installed.

Publish date: March 23, 2017 1:37 pm| Modified date: March 23, 2017 7:32 pm

Apple updates its software with patches for critical security vulnerabilities; update now

By tech2 News Staff /  24 Jan 2017 , 16:30

Yesterday’s Apple iOS 10.2.1 does not add any fancy new features to your phone, but it does patch over a dozen major vulnerabilities in the OS. Some of these vulnerabilities will allow hackers full access to your iOS device.

Some of these vulnerabilities, listed here, can allow an application to “execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges”. This is geek-speak for “your phone can be comprehensively hacked”.

As a Malwarebytes security analyst points out to Wired, these vulnerabilities will let hackers “add files, delete files or execute any actions.” Many of these vulnerabilities affect WebKit as well, which is the default rendering engine used by iOS. This means that any application that uses WebKit on iOS (which is a lot) is vulnerable.

Wired does add that most of these vulnerabilities are too obscure and hard to find for the regular hacker.

It’s not just iOS devices that are vulnerable, however; Apple has released updates for macOS, tvOS and watchOS as well. All of these updates include various security patches. The macOS update also includes a patch for the Safari browser caching bug that lost the MacBook Pro its first ‘recommended’ badge from Consumer Reports.

Obviously, you’d better make sure that all your Apple devices are updated if you want  to stay completely safe and secure.