This report should scare anyone side loading apps

Ads get better if they got to work a little

The latest CyberNews Investigation report shows us what will happen when and if Apple is forced to permit sideloading at its App Store, and the news really isn’t pretty.

Insecurity inside

The team has published research that shows the huge risk Android users face when installing free cleaning and antivirus (AV) apps on their smartphones, even when they download those apps from the Google Play store.

They found that the 40 highest-ranking such apps were riddled with security and privacy flaws.

Nearly all the apps investigated contained trackers, varying in number from just a handful to thirty in the case of Nova Security.

Shockingly, only Super Antivirus and Virtual Guard were completely free of data tracking, raising serious privacy concerns for Android users of free cleaning apps.

Apps contained up to 30 undisclosed trackers and even the most secure app scored a paltry 54 out of 100. Most scored far, far less. Two of the top forty apps couldn’t even be analysed to figure out what they were doing.

Key findings:

• Cybernews studied the 40 highest-ranking cleaning and antivirus apps by installation on the Google Play store, with more than 918 downloads as of the time of writing
• 13 of the apps were judged to be so detrimental to privacy that they scored the lowest possible grade in the team’s security ranking system, due to “questionable coding practices
• The best of a bad bunch was the Keep Clean Cleaner antivirus app, which scored an underwhelming 54 out of 100 for security
• Last place went to the Safe Security Antivirus booster and phone cleaner, which returned a dismal score of nine. The results are particularly worrying given that the two mentioned apps each have more than 100 million registered downloads.

What it doesn’t say on the can

“Since these apps are closely related to security and privacy, we expected them to set the highest standard possible,” said a spokesperson for the Cybernews research team. “However, this was not the case – as only two apps did not contain any trackers.”

What will happen when and if Apple is forced to permit sideloading at its App Store?

“Based on the total installation count, common Android users are eager to secure their phones from malware and interested in keeping their devices running as fast as possible by cleaning junk files and cache,” said the researchers.

“Less tech-savvy users are likely to download an app to do all of this tedious work automatically. However, a lot of the free available options come at a hidden price – user data is being tracked, sold or plainly managed insecurely due to questionable coding and privacy practices of the application developers.”

Less security = bigger problems

This should be taken with a pinch of reality, given Ars Technica’s shocking report revealing that apps made available at the Google Play were downloaded 300,000 times and stoke bank credentials.

Cybercrime is expected to cost the world $10.5 trillion per year by 2025, according to Cybersecurity Ventures

Great stuff and coming to an App Store near you – it’s like the Wild West or something.

Sideloading is not good for you.

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