Saturday, April 18, 2015

Flashlight app on your phone?


Watch this October 2014 alert about flashlight apps on SmartPhones.

Then you can lose a lot of sleep or head over to your cell phone provider's store and take action to protect yourself.

Do you use your phone for banking? Credit card payments? Just checking a balance on your credit card or checking account?

Good luck.

3 comments:

Big Daddy said...

Holy smokes, this is unbelievable. I wonder what other apps are doing this.

Clem Kadiddlehopper said...

When installing apps, always pay attention to the permissions requested. There is no reason for a flashlight app to need access to your contact list, or phone or SMS messaging, for example.

Also, have anti-virus software installed. Scan your phone for malware immediately after installing an app and on a regular basis,

Never install apps from 3rd party servers. Google or Apple only.

I try to limit my apps to those that I have immediate need for. If I don't need it anymore I get rid of it.

Finally, "updates" are a mixed blessing. They contain bug and security fixes which should be installed. They also open a vulnerability that a hacked or dishonest app developer can use to install malware/spyware/viruses at a future time.

This happened with an SMS messaging application I once installed. I was getting regular updates until my AV software caught it trying to install a virus. Messages to the developers were ignored. Which was okay because I immediately uninstalled it after it was detected and a full AV scan was run.

We live in an age where the crooks and grifters are thriving.

Gus said...

Clem K., thanks for your great advice.

I think I picked up a virus on my HTC smartphone. Hadn't thought about installing protection on it. Now I shall!