Trend Micro’s Android malware report sounds doubtful

Surely not every security company or anti-malware report is trustworthy, especially when we know that more malware means more earnings for the companies that try to get rid of it. Earlier we saw a report by Trend Micro that tries to convince us in the existence of tens of thousands of malware apps for Android. The report, however, sounds doubtful and brings up a lot of questions instead of answering them.

To begin with, Trend Micro says it has checked 2 million Android apps. These are not only apps from Russian or Chinese stores, they include apps from the Play Store. However, the company doesn’t make it clear whether all of the 700 000 apps on the Play Store have been checked. So we will have to decide what to believe – whether the Play Store is entirely checked or not. And then, of all the tested apps Micro Trend found that 24% were malware – from them 68 740 were from the Play Store. If they have tested all the apps in the Play Store, then 10% of them are malware.

Then Micro Trend gives us the number of ‘outright malicious’ (according to the company) apps – 293 091. Moreover, 150 203 other apps were classified as ‘high risk’. Now there are other questions that we would like to ask. Firstly, the malware apps are classified in seven categories, two of which are ‘Spying Tools’ and ‘Rooters’. The apps from the first category share the GPS location of the users and tracks their text messages and call logs. The second allow third parties to send commands to the handset, affected by the malicious software. However, we don’t understand whether these apps do it with or without permission – if there is a user permission, then in this categories you will find a great part of the SMS apps, as well as the apps created for root users.

An explanation and details have already been requested and we are expecting Micro Trend to provide them. Stay tuned for more information on the theme. You can also follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Source: Trend Micro