Are your applications being naughty?

The Tech Crunch blog posted yesterday regarding ‘naughty’ applications.

Remember when we were all FREAKING out about location tracking by random applications on our phone?  We now know how to check for which applications are capturing our location and how to turn it off.

Most applications are NOT malicious (or ‘naughty’).  However, there are hundreds of thousands of applications available.  We are relying on the coding standards of thousands of developers.  The applications in the Apple store are tested by Apple, However, the level of testing may not get to this detail.

Now, there is a new app out there Bitdefender Clueful which tracks any interactions the application has with the rest of  phone (iOS, address book, etc).  The clueful app scans the memory of the phone to see what actions the phone is performing.  It can also track what the app ‘could’ potentially do if you turned on a few settings. It also tells you the good things that the app is doing, whether it encrypts the data stored within the application.

The app is 3.99,  which is a little pricey for an phone app.  However, if you are concerned with the privacy of the data stored on your phone, check it out!

At TechCrunch, it was tested against a phone and they found a solitaire game was accessing the address book.   GAK!!

Mobile Security