[Powdah]

Verizon: Android is a mess, but the mobile malware epidemic is a myth | ZDNet

[jaydee5799]

makes me wanna re-think moving to android after my Z30 dies.

[Troy Tiscareno]

Android has the most malware, but almost none of it gets into the Google Play Store, which is why the few things that make it are things like email attachments. But third-party Android stores, particularly Chinese stores (1mobile and Aptoide, for example) are cesspools of malware because there is essentially no policing going on there.

What makes Android "more vulnerable" in the first place is that there are so many old phones running older OSs (still huge numbers of Gingerbread devices out there!), which is why Google has been moving key pieces of Android's security out of the OS and into Google Play Services, which it can update independently. Remember that Google makes the source of each version of Android available to all manufacturers (and to the world - you can download it yourself), but the phone manufacturer decides whether or not to update a given model or not, and there are tons of 2-5 year old devices with unpatched, ancient versions of Android out there because the manufacturer abandoned them.

Modern versions of Android have few vulnerabilities, and most people in Western countries tend to upgrade on a regular basis and not many carry old 2.x devices, or even 4.1/4.2 devices, but in other parts of the world, those older devices are still quite common, and that's where the real security issues are for the most part.

[Rello]

Most people knew that the Malware epidemic was just a myth. Only here on crackberry was it treated like it was unavoidable lol

Posted via CB10

[raino]

Android is a mess, yet Google removes the ability to manage app permissions (App Ops.) Mighty invested they are in user security

[BCITMike]

Most people knew that the Malware epidemic was just a myth. Only here on crackberry was it treated like it was unavoidable lol

Posted via CB10

Depends on malware definition. If it runs without knowledge and does things you don't want, that's malware. That is true for programs people installed intentionally, just didn't know all the background crap going on.

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