Do you have any ideas what your mobile apps are doing?
What you have given them permission to do?
When we buy or download free mobile apps, most of us automatically accept the requested permissions. Research from UC Berkeley has shown that most Android users don’t pay attention to the app installation process (only 17% paid attention to permission during installation) and a whopping 97% could not explain what the permissions meant.
In short: They had no idea what they were giving permission for!
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This is dangerous because apps ask for more permissions than they actually need, and some do stuff they haven’t asked permission for at all. Mobile social network ‘Path’ was discovered downloading people’s entire iPhone address book to its servers, for instance, without permission.
For Apple apps that’s an exception, because Apple pre-screens all apps before selling them. As a result, most Apple apps are safe. On the other hand, Apple does not show permissions explicitly, like Android apps do. That means you don’t know exactly what they’re doing.
This infographic from MacAfee makes it very clear that giving permission to mobile apps without knowing what they’re doing isn’t without risk.
Have you ever had issues with permission for mobile apps?
Do you usually check them before you install?
[via MacAfee]
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