Google Play Store | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Although Apple has its own operating system for both desktop (Mac OS X) and iPhone (iOS), the company has always tried to port its in-house applications to other OS platforms. Apple debuted on its rival mobile OS platform last year with the launch of Apple Music on Android. However, iTunes and Safari has already been made available for both Windows as well as Mac. Now, the company will soon move more of its mobile applications to Android if comments made by Chief Executive Tim Cook at the recent company-wide event for Apple employees are to be believed. iMessage App for Android Platform Cook reportedly told his staff that sooner Apple may bring other apps and exclusive services to the Android Systems, and added that bringing Apple Music to Android in November was "a way of testing the waters for growing its services division through other platforms," reports 9to5Mac. So, you could see iMessage , the company's encrypted messaging application, ex

Google is doubling the maximum APK file size on the Play Store from 50 MB to 100 MB . That means... Android app developers can now build higher quality Apps and Games that users love. Of course, for an end user it may affect the overall app performance and installation time, as well as mobile data connectivity. Google Wants Developers to Create Richer Apps By increasing file size limit from 50 MB to 100 MB, Google wants to encourage developers for creating richer apps and games , as well as help avoid the need for downloading additional files after the initial APK download. There are two primary purposes of setting a cap for APKs. The limit ensures: Developers write code efficiently and keep an eye on the overall size of their app Users don't have to wait too long to download an app or game from the Play Store However,  Expansion Files are still there to help developers build apps that exceed the 100MB barrier , but the aim to increase the base lim

Super Low RPO with Continuous Data Protection: Dial Back to Just Seconds Before an Attack Zerto , a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, can help you detect and recover from ransomware in near real-time. This solution leverages continuous data protection (CDP) to ensure all workloads have the lowest recovery point objective (RPO) possible. The most valuable thing about CDP is that it does not use snapshots, agents, or any other periodic data protection methodology. Zerto has no impact on production workloads and can achieve RPOs in the region of 5-15 seconds across thousands of virtual machines simultaneously. For example, the environment in the image below has nearly 1,000 VMs being protected with an average RPO of just six seconds! Application-Centric Protection: Group Your VMs to Gain Application-Level Control   You can protect your VMs with the Zerto application-centric approach using Virtual Protection Groups (VPGs). This logical grouping of VMs ensures that your whole applica

Are you a Die Hard Android Fan? If you are also one of those millions Android fans, for whom the brand has turned into an insane religious devotion, then Apple has something that could give you second thoughts. Apple is losing control, wants you to ditch your Android! Few days ago, Apple made its debut on Google Play Store with its First App, called " Move to iOS ", for Android Users. With its first ever Android app, Apple tried to kill Android Community and fans, But failed badly! Apple's new app works as an " Uncalled Assistance " in a manner where you have bought a new iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch and are confused about how to migrate data from your current Android device. Apple's ' Move to iOS ' app is designed to help Android users transfer their content quickly and safely from an Android device to an iOS device. The Apple App will help you in Migrating Data, like: Calendars Camera photos and videos Contacts Mail accounts Message history Web b

Google is planning to introduce a trimmed down special version of Google Play Store and Android Wear to The Mainland China. But wait, if I'm not wrong… Google had ended ties with China five years ago. Then what made Google to re-establish itself in China once again? Business?? Recent reports by Amir Efrati at The Information state that Google has massive plans to re-establish itself in the Mainland China. The search engine giant is aiming to get approval from China (the largest populated country in the world) for: Reviving Google as the Internet service provider Designing a tailor-made Google play store for China Android Wear software for the wearable existing in China Smart steps, though, but what happened back in 2010? Google and China always contradict each other, China's Internet laws and Google's censoring the search engine was one battle. In 2010, Google famously retracted its search engine Google.cn from Mainland China, after they ma

It's not at all surprising that the Google Play Store is surrounded by a number of malicious applications that may gain users' attention to fall victim for one, but this time it might be even worse than you thought. Threat researchers from security firm ESET have discovered a malicious Facebook-Credentials-Stealing Trojan masquerading as an Android game that has been downloaded by more than a Million Android users. Malicious Android Apps downloaded 50,000-1,000,000 times The Android game, dubbed " Cowboy Adventure ," and another malicious game, dubbed " Jump Chess " – downloaded up to 50,000 times, have since been removed from Google Play Store. However, before taking them off from the app store, the creepy game apps may have compromised an unknown number of victims' Facebook credentials . Both the games were created by the same software developer, Tinker Studio and both were used to gather social media credentials from unsuspec

So you love Minecraft ? You might want to be very careful before downloading the cheats for the popular Minecraft game from Google Play Store. Nearly 3 Million users have downloaded malicious Minecraft Android applications for their smartphone and tablets from the Google Play store, security researchers warned. The security researchers from IT security firm ESET have uncovered as many as 33 fake "scareware" applications that have been uploaded to the Google Play store in the course of the past 9 months, masquerading as Minecraft cheats and tip guides. These malicious applications have been downloaded between 660,000 and 2.8 million times. "All of the discovered apps were fake in that they did not contain any of the promised functionality and only displayed banners that tried to trick users into believing that their Android system is infected with a dangerous virus," ESET researcher Lukas Stefanko wrote in a blog post . Once downloaded, these mali

I have an Android phone with a five different gmail accounts configured in it. But what if any one of them get compromised via phishing, malware or any other way? The Hacker would be able to access my Google account and obviously Google Play Store account too, which allows anyone to install any Android application remotely into my phone without my knowledge and confirmation… What if someone compromises large number of Google accounts and trigger mass installation of a spying or malware app remotely with just one click???? Yes, this was exactly what the National Security Agency (NSA) had done under its widely spread Global surveillance program. A new top-secret document obtained from the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA and its closest allies planned to hijack Google and Samsung app stores to infect smartphones with spyware. The operation was launched by the Network Tradecraft Advancement Team, including spy agents from each of the coun

Just to have a good anti-virus protection app in your smartphone doesn't mean a complete Security. As Mobile Device Security is comprised of security of different features, such as: Data privacy and security features Permission restrictions for snoopy apps A blacklist for undesired calls An excellent backup capability, in case your smartphone gets deteriorated. As well as encryption functionality. Google's Android is a very flexible mobile operating system that can fulfill all these mobile device security challenges if you select the right security applications from Google Play Store. No doubt, Google Play Store has an abundance of suitable options, and it's quite difficult for you to select the ones that meet all your expectations. So, I decided to help you by making a short list of the best mobile device security applications that I always carry in my Android smartphone. Here are the best security apps you must have in your Android smartphone; have a look

Google has changed the way it managed apps on the Google Play Store . After years of depending on the automated app check process, the company just made some changes to its Play Store policies  that will successfully weed out malicious and undesirable apps from Google Play store. Google has introduced an update for developers and users that's sure to make some parents happy and some developers sad. The new features are — Better App Review Process Age-Based Rating System BETTER APP REVIEW PROCESS The search engine giant announced on Tuesday that it has started employing humans to review apps before they go live on the Google Play Store , a move intended to " better protect the community " and " improve the app catalog ." The new approach would definitely affect app developers, as they'll have to wait for their apps to be approved by Google after they submit them to the Play Store. But, it would keep users safe from harmful malware or offensive content.

Security researchers have warned of a pair of vulnerabilities in the Google Play Store that could allow cyber crooks to install and launch malicious applications remotely on Android devices. Tod Beardsley, technical lead for the Metasploit Framework at Rapid7 warns that an X-Frame-Options (XFO) vulnerability – when combined with a recent Android WebView (Jelly Bean) flaw – creates a way for hackers to quietly install any arbitrary app from the Play store onto victims' device even without the users consent. USERS AFFECTED The vulnerability affects users running Android version 4.3 Jelly Bean and earlier versions of Android that no longer receive official security updates from Android security team for WebView , a core component used to render web pages on an Android device . Also, users who have installed third party browsers are affected. According to the researcher, the web browser in Android 4.3 and prior that are vulnerable to a Universal Cross-Site Scripting (

With the rise in mobile market, last year we have seen sharp growth in malicious ' adware ' — the most prevalent mobile threat in the world. And now, security researchers have once again found Google Play Store offering malicious apps that are infecting millions of Android users with adware . It's not at all surprising that the Android operating system is surrounded by a number of unwanted intrusions that may gain users' attention to fall victim for one, but this issue might be even worse than we thought. WHAT IS ADWARE ? For those not familiar with adware, adware is a software that automatically displays or downloads advertising material like banners or pop-ups when a user is online. Doesn't sound dangerous, Right? But adware could result in a serious threat to users. Android Adware can pose a major threat to users' privacy, since some ad networks gather personal information like phone number, email address, and many more. Depending on where the ad netwo

Google is offering its users a completely new and better experience of its mailing service. And in an effort to do this, the company has launched a new email service, an alternative to Gmail, called " Inbox " on Wednesday that aims to make email more useful and preview next-generation capabilities. Inbox will not replace Gmail, the company's popular 10-year-old email product, instead it will sit next to its Gmail service and will provide users' better organize their emails with live alerts for appointments, flight bookings and package deliveries in a more user-friendly way. "Years in the making, Inbox is by the same people who brought you Gmail, but it's not Gmail: it's a completely different type of inbox, designed to focus on what really matters," wrote Sundar Pichai, Google's senior vice president of Android , Chrome and apps, in a blog post . According to the company, the Inbox service was designed to deal with the problem of ge

Google's Android Mobile operating system for smartphones and tablets have Google's own Play Store that provides its Android users the most visible way to access the world of millions of apps. App developers produce more than thousands of applications each year, but majority of newbie and unprofessional developers use unsafe, unreliable, and insecure coding practices, as many developers store secret keys in their apps that could potentially allow cybercriminals to steal users' sensitive data. A team of researchers from the computer science department of the Columbia University have discovered a critical security problem in the Google's official Android app store from where millions of Android users download various apps. Researchers have found that most of the Android application developers often store their secret keys in their app's code, similar to usernames/passwords information, which could be then used by any bad actor to maliciously steal users' information or r

If US has banned its several major government departments, including NASA, Justice and Commerce Departments, from purchasing Chinese products and computer technology due to suspected backdoors, then they are not wrong at all. A popular Chinese Android Smartphone comes pre-installed with a Trojan that could allow manufacturer to spy onto their users' comprising their personal data and conversations without any restrictions and users knowledge. GOOGLE PLAY STORE OR A SPYING APP? According to the researchers at the German security firm G Data , the Star N9500 smartphone, a popular and cheap handset device in China, comes pre-installed with Uupay.D Trojan horse, disguising as a version of the Google Play Store. The trojan camouflage as the Google Play Store , so it enables Chinese Company to secretly install malicious apps, which creates the whole spectrum of abuse. STEALING WITHOUT RESTRICTIONS The nasty Spyware runs in the background and has capability to steal

Google just made a huge change to the way application permissions work on Android devices which has left a potential door open to malicious app developers and hackers. Google narrows down Android's 145 permissions into 13 broad categories and groups app permissions into ' groups of related permissions ', likely for Android users to have an easier time dealing with app permissions. Unfortunately, the new update has introduced a few potential security and privacy issues, as listed below: hiding permissions behind the group names auto-updating app with no warning for new permissions According to new update, once a user approves an app's permissions, he actually approves the whole respective permission groups. For example, if an app want to read your incoming SMS messages, then it requires the " Read SMS messages " permission. But now installing an app, you are actually giving it access to all SMS-related permissions. The app developer can then include