Until someone gets hurt either financially or personally then the issue like they say " that dog won't hunt". I also was wondering what the effect on the performance of the android machines the "malware" software was causing and what was it doing? It was not clear to me from the article that they knew what all the rogue software was doing (if anything). It does not surprise me that there are those who will try to piggyback on software to get access to machines, what does surprise me is this is the first I have heard of it on Androids.
So did anyone actually buy these wild claims that BT seems to have retracted already, for example http://www.zdnet.com/bt-backpedals-on-claims-almost-every-android-device-has-malware-7000001837/
Seems like a FUD campaign to me. So really the question is, whose? Should the headline start with "According to Apple,..." or perhaps "According to Microsoft,..."?
I think the attack that's being described here involves GPS but GPS itself isn't being hacked. The malware initiates GPS tracking. That is, it samples location periodically and surreptitiously sends it (e.g., via silent text message or http) to a stalker.
I mean, to prevent the user of this cell phone from being vulnerable to stalking, of course.
The reason to authenticate the GPS broadcast is different. It is to prevent a hacker from introducing fake GPS position information. But that would not be targetted to just one user device, unless that one user device is the only device in that general area. Any device within range of the hacker's signal would be equally vulnerable.
Once again, our cool technology is a double edged sword. Are there any single edged swords?
Malware or not, these phones can allow trouble to happen.Photos can have location and time data embedded in them. Unsecure texts or Twitter posts can expose such information. All of the marvelous capabilities in the smart phone in my pocket could make my life so much easier while at the same time making my entire life much more vulnerable to theft and or exploitation.