The Anti-virus Times

Monday, June 13, 2016

Even if a user exercises great caution when downloading new applications, the risk of infection is always present. Criminals seeking to infect devices with malware have a lot of options.

An application for Android can only be installed on a device if the user agrees to grant it certain permissions —this is a cornerstone of Android security.

As a rule, users are not competent enough to determine whether a certain application really needs certain permissions (especially, prior to installing it). As a result, users agree to give the application everything it supposedly needs.

Virus makers know this too!

They often craft programs that, in addition to useful features, also incorporate malicious ones or introduce malicious code into existing programs. Perhaps, the torch Trojan Android.Toorch.1.origin serves as a prime example.

To prevent malware from hiding its malicious intentions in a long list of permission requests during installation, in the latest Android versions, programs prompt users for permissions whenever they need to use a certain system feature.

Great idea!

However, now malicious programs can hide their prompts in the system, for example, under completely legitimate ones.

As a result, a malicious program can acquire more privileges that the user will ever have!