This June, Google's Project Abacus, which was launched at a conference last year, is expected to see real-world tests. Last week, Dan Kaufman, Google's director of Advanced Technology and Projects group, announced that several major financial organisations are involved in the trial, and will start testing a Trust Application Programme Interface (API) that offers an alternative to passwords, using machine intelligence for user authentication purposes. The outcome of the forthcoming test could mean that the Trust API will become widely available by this December. 

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Detecting and preventing viruses on the android OS

Here’s the bad news. As a programmer, there is more money in taking the Android operating system apart and exploiting it than there is in helping people prevent and detect viruses/malware.

Why such a bleak outlook?

Go to Google Play and you will find a chunk of virus/malware detectors for free. People aren’t spending big money on protecting themselves, so companies are not investing big money in protecting people (it’s called economics).

How to tell if you have a virus/malware?

You are reading this, so you...

Detecting and preventing viruses on the android OS

Here’s the bad news. As a programmer, there is more money in taking the Android operating system apart and exploiting it than there is in helping people prevent and detect viruses/malware.

Why such a bleak outlook?

Go to Google Play and you will find a chunk of virus/malware detectors for free. People aren’t spending big money on protecting themselves, so companies are not investing big money in protecting people (it’s called economics).

How to tell if you have a virus/malware?

You are reading this, so you...

The growth in the popularity of Android smartphones has been a great contributor to the spread of malware based on the platform. Delving a bit into details, the Android market share grew to a whopping 87% in 2013 and at the time, the platform accounted for about 97% of all infection cases. Looking at the growth in the number of threats, there were 238 reported in 2012 and 804 in 2013. During this time, the combined total of all new threats on the BlackBerry OS, Apple iOS and Microsoft Windows Phone platforms was zero. The 3% was from the Symbian platform.

So how do you stay secure?

Although...

For days now reports have been circulating on the Internet about significant vulnerabilities in the Android browser, which make smartphones externally vulnerable. Even more surprising, however, was the statement from Google that they are not planning an update to close this gap. Not merely a few critics and experts are speaking of a lifelong vulnerability and criticising the US company for its inaction. It affects smartphones that use an older operating system.

Google advises affected users to use a new Android system, which is not affected by the vulnerability. The cost for an update,...

F-Secure has published its new Mobile Threat Report for Q3 2013. This report shows a clear trend in the growth of malware for Android operating systems.

Especially the big extension of Android system makes this operation system a good target for cyber attacks and the fact that a lot of users are still too frivolous in using this system.

In Q3 F-Secure found 259 malware variations and 252 of them are made for Android, only 7 of them for Symbian. In Q2 they found 205 malware variations. But not only the number of malware is growing, they are even getting more and more complex. Especially a wide...