A potential security breach for our privacy and protection on pre-installed applications

A potential security breach for our privacy and protection on pre-installed applications

January 19, 2020 Off By admin

Bloatwares are pre-installed applications in mobile when we buy it.

If sometimes they go unnoticed, in some cases they greatly disturb users. Indeed, not only to be largely useless for the needs of the latter, they usually occupy a place in the ramper and Roma memory, space that could have been used for something else. In addition, recent findings suggest that these pre-installed applications are often threats to users' privacy and security. And worst of all, they are usually removable because you can't uninstall them without going through too risky manipulation.

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As one can see it in practice, they often serve as alternatives some of the apps offered by Google, such as messaging services or calendars. They can also be applications related to mobile network provider.

In any case, its pre-installed applications are more disruptive than they are really useful. And the grumbling is only growing. Indeed, the non-governmental organization, Privacy International Organization has sent an open letter to the first manager of Alphabet, Google's parent company, asking Google to intervene on its operating system in order to control the actions of these almost useless applications.

This letter was co-signed by some 50 other organizations around the world. Their intervention comes after a finding that a very large proportion of applications preinstalled in Android smartphones, 91% of which are not present on the Google play store. In other words, these applications do not benefit from the security services offered by the Mountain View firm, and are able to impose their permissions without even allowing the user to choose. Therefore, they are of course able to access several features of the mobile phone without the user's knowledge and also his data. Speaking in particular of the microphone, the geographical location, the user of multimedia services such as the camera, not to mention storage.

And always according to the content of the letter, this kind of practice is very common in Android smartphones sold at lower cost and distributed in parts of the world. These organizations not only want to alert the dangers of privacy that its applications are, but they would like mountain View to act by taking advantage of its control to punish these deviations. In practical terms, they require Google's share that applications that will now be pre-installed, allow certain actions such as "allow users to immediately delete these applications.As well as services that run in the background. secondly Pre-installed applications must follow the same approval processes Google's app store, with a focus on permissions. »

In addition, it is also required that its applications be updated via the Google PlayStore without necessarily having to comply with an account opening requirement related to the brands that produced these smartphones. And being constantly exposed to security vulnerabilities emanating from pre-installed applications, or even from the system produced by smartphone manufacturers, is likely to make these calls serious. The Alphabet CEO's statement is recalled: "Confidentiality is not a luxury element. This should only be offered to people who can afford it. ».

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