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Researchers have discovered that some Android apps are sending screenshots of your phone to developers and third parties.
Researchers have discovered that some Android apps are sending screenshots of your phone to developers and third parties. According to a new study by researchers at Northeastern University, spying on everything you do on your phone.
The study titled "Panoptispy: Characterizing Audio and Video Exfiltration from Android Applications" analyzed 17,260 Android applications to understand how they can be spying on its users, detailed USA Today . The result was that of the 17,260 applications, about 9,000 users requested give access to the application to the phone's camera and microphone. Of the 9,000 apps that requested such access, 12 apps were sending screenshots of user activity to developers and sometimes to a third party.
Screen captures, also called "Full-Replay Technology", provide third-party unfiltered eyesight on what users do when they interact with an application. This includes everything the user clicks, types, and even addresses at home.
One of the 12 apps, GoPuff, sends screenshots to an app analysis company called Appsee. After this information was leaked to Google and Appsee, Appsee's CEO, Zahi Boussiba, issued the following statement:
"It appears that Appsee's technology has been diverted by the customer and that our terms of use were violated.When this issue came to our attention, we immediately disabled the tracking features for the application mentioned and purged all relevant data from our servers. "[19659003] Although the Appsee service offers application developers the ability to save GoPuff user movements did not disclose the use of third-party technology. Therefore, Appsee claims that invasion of privacy is GoPuff's fault
It's remarkable how many times I've had to refute conspiracy theories like this – good to have research to save the logic: https: // t.Co / Yb5AoSAQf5
– Oskar (@austegard) July 5, 2018
Google studies Appsee 's capabilities by stating: "We have determined that part of the services of. AppSee could put some developers at risk. We work closely with them to help developers appropriately communicate the functionality of the SDK to the end-users of their applications.
Currently, Android phones do not tell users that anyone could register their phone activity. [19659003Otherresearcherswouldnotdefinitelycompetentswhocouldlistenorregisterusersthroughmicrosmodeledcamerasaccordingto Gizmodo .
In addition to the screen capture problems listed above, another According to the study, "there is a weak correlation between the permissions that an application application and the permissions of which an application needs to execute his code. " This is alarming, since permissions should only be granted to applications as applications can gain deep access to users' phone data.
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