security - 2/12 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Mar

AT&T Pushing Small Update (I777UCLL6) To Galaxy S II With Bug Fixes And Security Enhancements

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in AT&T, Galaxy S II, News

According to a forum post on AT&T's support site and some scattered user reports, the carrier's Galaxy S II variant is receiving a small update today. Rolling out over the air as you read these words, the software fixes an issue where devices would become unresponsive or power down while idle.

The update also includes the requisite "security enhancements." If you haven't updated your phone to 4.0 yet, well for starters, why not? Secondly, you'll need to do so first before you can apply the update. This is rolling out over the air, so hit your Settings app to find it or just wait for the notification to show up.

Mar

Security Flaw Allows Sony Xperia Z Lockscreen Bypass

Posted by Ryan Whitwam in News, Sony, Xperia Z

You'd think the concept of a lockscreen would be simple. It, you know, locks the phone. Several OEMs have still ended up with bugs that allow users to get around the lockscreen completely. The newest such vulnerability has been discovered in Sony's flagship, the Xperia Z. Just a few simple steps, and anyone can gain full access to the device.

In the video, you can see one Scott Reed demonstrating the problem. By pulling up the emergency dialer from the lockscreen you can enter the USSD code *#*#7378423#*#*. That code opens up the device's services menu. From there, it's a simple matter of triggering the NFC Diag Test, which allows you to press the home button and actually get to the homescreen.

Mar

Evernote Experiences Security Breach, Resets Passwords As A Precaution

Posted by Cody Toombs in Applications, News

The problem with relying on cloud services is that they are prime targets for hackers. Earlier today, popular note-storing service Evernote acknowledged that it had detected "suspicious activity" on the network. In its blog post, Evernote specified that the intruder(s) had only gained access to account details, including usernames, email addresses, and encrypted passwords. The announcement further clarified that passwords are protected with one-way encryption, a process where a password is first salted and then hashed to make decryption extraordinarily difficult. The company also states that no content (stored notes and pictures) or payment information had been compromised. Aside from email addresses, the wrong-doers failed to get anything particularly valuable.

Feb

Secunia PSI Is A Tech Preview Of A 'Security' App That Scans A Few Other Apps And Gives You Useless Information

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

There are a lot of security apps for Android that go a little ways into overkill territory. Whether you're talking about superfluous task managers or "virus scanners" that may provide some minimal protection while generating more fear than is warranted, Android has a persistent problem with companies applying a Windows-era mentality on a completely different OS. Secunia PSI, however, takes the cake for being one of the least effective apps on the Play Store.

Here's how it works: Secunia scans your apps for possible vulnerabilities. Not actual infections, mind you. It just checks to see if the currently installed versions of your application match any known security holes.

Feb

Secure USB Password Manager myIDkey Zooms Past $150,000 Kickstarter Goal

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, News

We don't often cover Kickstarter campaigns – after all, the platform is flooded with entries that may not be worth mentioning, or are dead on arrival. Sometimes, though, a gadget comes through that exceeds expectations, and the myIDkey is one of those.

myIDkey is a voice-activated secure USB drive that manages your passwords. Across all devices. Oh, and it has a fingerprint scanner. The project has absolutely demolished its $150,000 funding goal, reaching (at the time of writing) $164,126 with twenty seven days left to go.

The handy USB device looks to give you a "key to all your devices," connecting directly through USB to your PC or via Bluetooth to your mobile device(s).

Feb

Hideman Is A Stellar Multiplatform VPN App That Lets You Route Traffic Through One Of 22 Countries [Deep-Dive Look]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in App Reviews, Applications, Reviews

For the past few weeks, I've been testing Hideman - a VPN solution with a feature set I've been seeking for a very long time. I've been using both Android and Windows apps to test the service, and let me tell you - it is everything I was hoping it would be and then some.

Hideman is available for the following operating systems:

Android
Windows
MacOS
Linux (via OpenVPN - you can find configs once you log in)
iOS.

But let's start from the beginning.

Dec

Samsung Exynos 4 Exploit Discovered: Root And Full Access To RAM Possible In A Single App

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Galaxy Note, Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S II, Galaxy S III, News, Samsung

There's some disturbing news today on the Android security front: an vulnerability has been discovered for Samsung's Exynos 4-powered devices. While the related exploit is useful for the mod scene in that it can be harnessed to gain superuser permissions and root pretty much any device running on an Exynos 4 chip, it's also got some rather disturbing implications. According to an XDA member with the handle "alephzain", who developed the exploit, using this security hole can also grant an app access to all physical memory on a given device - basically, anything stored in RAM is fair game. The virtual directory for memory within the kernel, dev/exynos-mem, is wide open, apparently for access to various camera-related functions.

Dec

CM Team Member Releases aeGis Open Source Security App - Remotely Lock, Wipe, Locate Or Alarm Your Phone With A Text

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

While there is no shortage of security apps on the Play Store, aeGis one stands out a bit for a few reasons. For starters, it's dead simple to use. Set up a specific trigger phrase and you can text your phone to lock the display, remotely wipe, find the address of, or sound an alarm from your phone. There's no web interface, unfortunately, but this app trades the elaborate suite of services of something like Avast for simplicity.

What's even cooler is this app is entirely open source. Built by a member of the CyanogenMod team as a side project, the entire codebase is available on Github here.

Nov

[APK Teardown] Coming To A Play Store Near You: App Reviews Will Require A G+ Profile, Pre-Order Support, And More

Posted by Ron Amadeo in APK Teardown, Features, News

Google has been on an update roll lately, with Voice, YouTube, Google+, Calendar, and Music all getting updates in the last week. I've been dutifully doing teardowns on all of them, but there's been no hidden goodies, and thus, no articles. There was a Play Store update this weekend, however, and that does have some interesting, new stuff in it, so we're back!

Google+ App Reviews

Android is quickly becoming the Google+ OS.

App reviews in the Play Store will soon require a Google+ account, and future reviews will be posted showing your full Google+ name and picture. The string file always seems to be the most enlightening, so we'll start with that first.

Nov

Nexus 4 Review Addendum: Lock Screen Widgets, No Benchmark Improvements, And Better Battery Life

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Jelly Bean 4.2, LG, Nexus 4, Reviews

The Nexus 4 retail software update is out! Previously, all Nexus 4 were running pre-release software, which was missing a few things. I reviewed the Nexus 4 as best I could with the beta software, but I wanted to update it once I had a few days to play with the final build.

Now that the final software is out, I've updated my review, and, to save people that have already read it from digging through 6000 words looking for updates, I'm putting all the new info in this article, too. So, if you haven't read the review and want to know all about the Nexus 4, skip this article, and go read the whole, updated thing.