Mobile Phone Malware

Can your mobile phone get infected? It's possible, though not as likely as your computer. Studies show up to 84% of people on the planet have a smartphone so as a group they are a large target. And as we've written, most malware is written by organized criminal groups that see malware and ransomware as a business, so they like large targets.

Attack Vectors

Smartphone operating systems (OS) do a good job of isolating apps and providing a controlled environment. In most cases malware needs the person to do something, so they send a text with a link to a malicious web site, or compromise a web site seeking to infect phones that visit it. Or the link might direct one to a malicious app to download. So, avoid clicking links in unexpected text messages or emails, and don't install apps outside of the device's app store. Check apps for what permissions they require, before installing.

Comparing Apple and Android

While both Apple and Google (Android) maintain their own app stores, both stores have been found to host (and remove) malicious apps in the past that slipped through screening. Most consider Apple to be a bit more of a secure OS, however most versions of iOS can be "jailbroken" which allows installing apps outside of the Apple App Store. Android users can choose to install apps outside of Google's Play store but that is also not recommended. Generally phones are more secure than computers because apps are contained in their own environment.

It's vital to keep one's phone up to date, and plan to replace it when it is no longer supported. Apple used to be very good about pushing out updates, but in early 2022 started delaying iOS updates by a month or so, letting people who manually check for updates install them first before pushing them out to everyone. So, it might be a good idea to check occasionally. Apple tends to support older phones until the hardware can't keep up. Right now we'd expect a 5-6 year period of support.

Android phones depend on the phone manufacturer issuing updates. A few years ago Google had to crack down and publicly shame manufacturers who often delayed updates by a year or more. As a result that has improved significantly, however, as the developer Google is generally ahead of other manufacturers in terms of speed. However, there is a big caveat to Android: each manufacturer has different support dates. In particular Google supports their own phones based on the launch date of the device. Pixel 6 is supported for 5 years, but earlier devices have only 3 years of support. So if you bought a Pixel 5 today, it would only have about 16 months of security updates.

Signs of Infection

Watch for:

increased battery usage (as opposed to decreased battery capacity due to age)
slow performance
overheating
higher than normal mobile data usage
unusual prompts or pop-ups

If you suspect an app, uninstall it. Consider restarting your phone. Android has a "safe mode" which doesn't allow apps to run, but allows activity like uninstalling apps. In extreme cases one might consider resetting the device to factory defaults, and restoring from backup.

Is Mobile Antivirus Worth It?

Most mobile "antivirus" or security apps aren't actually antivirus, if you read their features carefully. As noted above mobile OSs isolate apps which prevent an actual low level antivirus from functioning. So they may say they can check text messages or provide a VPN service, but don't actually check for malware.

June 2022

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