Warning from "Symantec Intelligence Report September 2012"..!!
The world of Android applications is truly a buzzing hive of activity these days. As a result, more and more scammers jump on this highly productive bandwagon, and the types of attacks and scams get more creative—some are so incredible they defy belief.
The effectiveness of these types of applications varies from the useful to the negligible, so a little research is required to determine this. Unfortunately there are also malicious applications, such as “Battery Long” (Android.Ackposts1), that appear to help with the battery life, but simply steal information from the compromised device.
Breaking through the boundaries of credibility are a bunch of applications that will supposedly turn your phone screen into a solar charger. Even though this is completely false, there are a number of “legitimate” applications out there making this claim. Many operate by using the cameras to measure the ambient light levels to move an onscreen dial, indicating the “charge rate” for increased accuracy. These are joke applications at best, in some cases even including small print on the application description page denying it has the ability to actually charge the phone.
Beyond the fun that can be had playing practical jokes, there is good reason to avoid such applications altogether. Take the following iteration of Android.Sumzand2 for example.
The application claims to be able to convert the screen on your device into a solar panel and use it to charge the battery, if exposed to sunlight. However, there are some unstated capabilities within this application that you need to watch out for—Android.Sumzand also happens to steal contact data from your phone.
Until real solar panels are actually installed on phones, it’s best to just continue charging your phone the old-fashioned way: plugging it in to a wall socked or USB port. Besides that, be careful what you download and install from application marketplaces. If an application requests permissions that seem out of the ordinary for what it is supposed to do, then don’t install it.
