Free mobile apps can cost users their privacy

As if IT admins were not busy enough securing end-users’ computers, servers, and the network, they now need to come up with ways to protect end-users’ phones. Not only are malicious hackers devising ways to eavesdrop on targets’ private phone conversations, but new research shows that many of the free apps available for the popular iPhone and Android platforms are capable of gathering sensitive user data.

Mobile security firm Lookout examined some 300,000 applications for the iPhone and Android and discovered a relatively small — though not negligible — portion of them are capable of determining a user’s location, as well as his or her full contact information, pictures, text messages, and Internet and search histories.

[ Also on InfoWorld.com: Making sense of mobile management | Get the ideal iPhone and iPad apps for pros with our business iPhone apps finder. | Keep up on key mobile developments and insights with the Mobile Edge blog and Mobilize newsletter. ]

That sort of data could be used for relatively harmless activities, such as marketing, but it also could find its way into the hands of cyber criminals and be used for nefarious deeds.

Broken down between the iPhone and Android platforms, Lookout found:

28 percent of the apps in the iPhone App Store are free, whereas 64 percent of the available apps for Android are free29 percent of free applications on Android have the ability to access a user’s location, compared with 33 percent of free applications on the iPhoneNearly twice as many free applications have the ability to access user’s contact data on iPhone (14 percent) compared to Android (8 percent) 47 percent of free Android apps include code from third parties for mobile advertising and analytics purposes, compared to 23 percent on iPhone additional resources White Paper

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