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Some Android apps are sending your data to 2,000 websites

Gizmodo reports that the study was conducted by Luigi Vigneri and his associates from Eurecom in France. They downloaded over 2,000 free apps from all of the Google Play Store’s 25 categories and ran them on a Samsung Galaxy S3.
The phone was setup to route all outgoing traffic from apps through the team’s specially-rigged server. This logged every web address that the apps attempted to contact.
A total of 250,000 different URLs were recorded across nearly 2,000 top-level domains. Whilst the majority of apps connected to just a few ad providers or tracking sites each, the team singles out some which were much more interesting.
Of particular note is volume controller “Music Volume EQ”. Logic dictates that controlling a phone’s volume shouldn’t require any access to the Internet. If it does, it should just be to pull in a couple of adverts to help with revenue – after all, the app is free in the store.
The team found something rather different going on though. The tiny volume controller actually connected to almost 2,000 unique servers across the Internet.
Music Volume EQ isn’t alone. Out of the 2,000 apps tested, around 10% communicated with over 500 different URLs. Naturally, the study found that some apps were communicating with servers that clearly hosted malware.
The team is now working on an app to prevent this behaviour from taking place. Named “NoSuchApp”, it will monitor all outgoing traffic from your phone in the same manner that the researchers did in their study. You will be able to see exactly which servers your apps are trying to contact.
It will be available in the Play Store very soon and seeks to restore trust in Android users who have long wondered how safe their apps are. The open environment of the Google Play store means that it is a lot less safe than Apple’s App Store and it is easier for potentially dangerous apps to get in.
With the potential for 10% of the “free” apps on your phone to be communicating with over 500 servers each, owners may be worried about the furtive and invisible activity. The good news is that NoSuchApp should make it a little easier for users to see which apps are doing what and eliminate those that they aren’t happy with.

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