Instagram Fakes Spreading Malware on Android Devices | Hacker News Reader

Instagram Fakes Spreading Malware on Android Devices

thenextweb.com

17 pointsiProject26 comments

I read the current title as Instagram faking a malware spread, not that there are Instagram-lookalikes spreading malware.

Yes me too. This title is intentionally misleading.

I always try to avoid being cynical, but in this case, It's hard to argue otherwise:

Page title <title>: Instagram Fakes Spreading Malware on Android Devices

Post title <h1>: Fake Instagram apps are spreading malware on Android devices

In the page title, "fakes" is ambiguous. Is it a noun or a verb? The page title shows up in search results and RSS feeds, thus the ambiguity is present in a place where the verb interpretation would raise more eyebrows.

The title of this post has nothing to do with the post itself. TNW you suck.

Haha. That man on the embedded picture is The Witness. http://lurkmore.to/%D0%A1%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B... It's an internet meme and it looks like malware authors left it there on purpose for malware researchers' amusement.

I downloaded a N64 emulator a week or two ago, and the spam on my phone has been relentless. I'm literally getting a dozen notifications a day and more worryingly its actually installing apps, "Offer of the day!" and such.

I didn't mind it for a day or two if I'm honest, was happy to have the emulator. But now its just plain annoying.

Was going to look into reformatting my phone. Samsung Nexus ICE. Its a shame really, you'd hope for a level of protection.

Always look what permissions app asks for and don't accept anything that seems unusual for that type of app. Even apps on market can be malicious so having antivirus shouldn't hurt either. I have one primarily because of a "phone recovery" feature as my Defy didn't have it built in.. but who knows what I'll try to install one day.

Did you download this through the market?

If yes, did you leave a comment warning others about this, and did you report the app?

Your device is rooted, I presume? That is the only way an app could install other apps.

Honestly in this case you have no one to blame but yourself. Root your phone and all bets are off.

Root your phone and grant superuser permissions to untrusted apps, and yes, all bets are off. Most root user ROMs won't, by default, grant root access to apps unless you manually white-list them.

Err, haven't rooted my phone actually.

This is definitely fodder for the "walled garden" proponents to justify closed and heavily vetted architectures. It feels like the old WWW-Wild west days but this time with bigger brothers smugly looking down with the "tut, tut, tut" expression on their faces.

The average user doesn't care if their phone is "open" or not.

Having a walled garden is beneficial to 99% of the users.

"open" mobile devices (even though they really aren't that open) benefits some developers and users.

The average user doesn't care if their phone is "open" or not.

This is like saying that the average user doesn't care about free markets or not. Sure, they might not directly state a preference, but they do most certainly care about the platform benefits of it.

Why does it matter what OS my toaster runs when all I want is a bagel?

If the dominant toaster conglomerate decided to exclude bagels, you would care.

but they don't exclude bagels. ;)

I disagree; I think that perspective is shortsighted because it only looks at the direct benefits.

Think of how much users have been benefiting from new and innovative webapps, which are a result of the competition between browsers. Now imagine where we would be if Windows was a walled garden and didn't allow competing applications, like Apple does with iOS.

Openness breeds competition. Competition is always good for the user.

The app store is a walled garden. the web (Safari) is not.

You get the best of both worlds with iOS without the pain of fragmentation and virus/malware/spyware/etc.

The browser is an extremely important part of the web. For now, Safari for iOS is up-to-date with the rest of the browsers, but what if it starts lagging behind? Either the users are stuck not being able to use fully certain websites, or the web gets stuck like it still is with IE.

I'm not saying walled gardens don't have advantages to the users - a garden with a good landscaper is probably better for the common user, no doubt. But to say that openness only benefits devs and a small number of users is shortsighted. It's a balancing act.

key phrase: "what if"

also: iOS is open enough for 99% of the smart phone users.

I don't hear my mom complaining "oh how I wish i can install a custom boot ROM on this iPhone".

How much are you going to bet on 99% users not wanting access to adult (or otherwise contriversial) content on their phone?

it's called a web browser.

So I guess you would bet? That's bold.

This is definitely fodder for the "walled garden" proponents to justify closed and heavily vetted architectures.

This is justification for some control, not total control. It is not all or nothing, and Google has shown startling negligence in even the most rudimentary of protections.

Seriously, name collisions and similarity should automatically yield a human review.

This is definitely happening (the Temple Run clones on the Market come to mind here), but in this case, the malware's not on the Market, I don't believe - it's being distributed on other sites. So I'm not sure the walled garden stuff matches here - you can download cracked iOS ipas all over the 'net, too.

The unfortunate thing here is that users are going to try to install this stuff by hook or by crook not caring from whence they get it. It's tough for developers or for Google to police this (although, with control of a search engine, you've got that - but policing search results this way is also a slippery slope. You could lock down side-loading, but that's draconian and easily subvertible anyway. You'd be surprised at the number of non-computer savvy folks who are rooted/jailbroken).

I'm not sure what the solution is - education helps (and wide proliferation of this particular malware campaign helps get the issue in front of the public a bit), community self-policing helps (see Cydia, Cyanogenmod communities), but when someone wants something and can't find it for whatever reason, they'll do anything they can to get it, no matter how dangerous.

Seriously, I once had a woman email me very upset--someone emailed her an apk off a pirate site and she was having a heck of a time getting it to download and install on her Blackberry Torch! Please help!

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