{"id":3696,"date":"2019-08-14T15:32:29","date_gmt":"2019-08-14T03:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kinetics.co.nz\/?p=3696"},"modified":"2019-08-14T15:32:29","modified_gmt":"2019-08-14T03:32:29","slug":"is-your-phone-one-of-the-25m-infected-android-phones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/?p=3696","title":{"rendered":"Is your phone one of the 25M infected Android phones?"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n

Watch your phone!<\/h2>\n

Agent Smith is the name of the somewhat dry villain character in the Matrix movie trilogy from the late 90’s.\u00a0 He appears everywhere, instantly, taking over legitimate personas and replacing them with himself.<\/p>\n

So is a well-named virus (actually Malware) that’s infecting Android phones by the millions.<\/strong>\u00a0 It spreads when a user downloads an app that’s infected with the malicious code, typically from a third-party site (i.e.not the Google app store).\u00a0 This is most common if you were responding to an advertisement in a webpage or email.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

These might be copies of legitimate apps such as the browser “Opera”, the common keyboard “SwiftKey” or the messaging tool “WhatsApp”. \u00a0 It seems that once you are infected, this spreads and infected phones can end up with over 100 cloned apps.\u00a0 Of course, you use these apps innocently and when they ask for permission to do things like access your personal data, you tend to agree.\u00a0 If you operate an infected app,\u00a0 the malware checks all apps on your phone and if it recognises any apps that have been compromised elsewhere on the internet, it will swap out the good app on your phone for an infected clone copy.<\/p>\n

Most complaints seem to be about displaying unwanted advertisements, but it could be a lot worse, hitting your banking apps or worse.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, what can you do?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Keep your phones updated.<\/strong>\u00a0 We can include mobiles in KARE Foundation and will let you know how out-of-date or current your phones are;<\/li>\n
  2. Keep anti-virus on your phones<\/strong>, and again tools like KARE include these capabilities;<\/li>\n
  3. \u00a0Only installs apps from the official app store<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    (If you have an iPhone and are feeling a little clever right now, just be aware that there are vulnerabilities and malware on these too<\/strong>, however their app store is more tightly controlled so its less prevalent).<\/p>\n

    [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Watch your phone! Agent Smith is the name of the somewhat dry villain character in the Matrix movie trilogy from the late 90’s.\u00a0 He appears everywhere, instantly, taking over legitimate personas and replacing them with himself. So is a well-named virus (actually Malware) that’s infecting Android phones by the millions.\u00a0 It spreads when a user […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3698,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"

    [wow_colorme]Watch your phone![\/wow_colorme]<\/h2>\nAgent Smith is the name of the somewhat dry villain character in the Matrix movie trilogy from the late 90's.\u00a0 He appears everywhere, instantly, taking over legitimate personas and replacing them with himself.\n\nSo is a well-named virus (actually Malware) that's infecting Android phones by the millions.<\/strong>\u00a0 It spreads when a user downloads an app that's infected with the malicious code, typically from a third-party site (i.e.not the Google app store).\u00a0 This is most common if you were responding to an advertisement in a webpage or email.\n\n\"\"\n\nThese might be copies of legitimate apps such as the browser \"Opera\", the common keyboard \"SwiftKey\" or the messaging tool \"WhatsApp\". \u00a0 It seems that once you are infected, this spreads and infected phones can end up with over 100 cloned apps.\u00a0 Of course, you use these apps innocently and when they ask for permission to do things like access your personal data, you tend to agree.\u00a0 If you operate an infected app,\u00a0 the malware checks all apps on your phone and if it recognises any apps that have been compromised elsewhere on the internet, it will swap out the good app on your phone for an infected clone copy.\n\nMost complaints seem to be about displaying unwanted advertisements, but it could be a lot worse, hitting your banking apps or worse.<\/strong>\n\nSo, what can you do?\n
      \n \t
    1. Keep your phones updated.<\/strong>\u00a0 Tools like [wow_colorme]Kinetics KARE for Mobile<\/a>[\/wow_colorme]\u00a0will let you know how out-of-date or current your phones are;<\/li>\n \t
    2. Keep anti-virus on your phones<\/strong>, and again tools like [wow_colorme]KARE for Mobile[\/wow_colorme]<\/a> include these capabilities;<\/li>\n \t
    3. \u00a0Only installs apps from the official app store<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n[wow_spacing size=\"20px\"]\n\n(If you have an iPhone and are feeling a little clever right now, just be aware that there are vulnerabilities and malware on these too<\/strong>, however their app store is more tightly controlled so its less prevalent).","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}