ANSWER ME THIS "BATMAN......"

 WHO IS GETS INFECTED MORE - CELL PHONE USERS, OR, PC USERS?

Ah, that tricky Riddler, always up for some Q & A with the caped crusader. Seriously though, if someone asked you who got more malware infections: cell phone users or PC users, what would you answer. I would think that instinctively most would answer "PC USERS", and quickly find out that their answer was not correct, but that it was the cell phone user who was most likely to get infected - not any cell phone user, but someone who used an Android OS phone would end up being the top pick. Surprised? Not me.

The latest security paper released by SOPHOS shows that 10% of all android-based phone users have been infected, compared to 6% of PC users in the US. This has to get your attention at some level because many of you have been infected recently by Malware on your Windows-based computer, and a large percentage of you have android cell phones. "So", you ask, "What's the worse thing that could happen to me if my cell phone gets infected?"

Here are just a few examples:

• Apps that track your location
• Apps that can listen in on your phone calls
• Apps that can make your phone dial expensive phone numbers that charge per minute.
• Apps that can steal your contact list
• Apps that can do most of the above in one App

And here I stop, because the list is endless. IF you have an Android-based cell phone then pa-Leeeeze get some protection! What about iPhones? Yes, there are many iphone users out there, and except for different versions of the iPhone, there is only one iPhone to be hacked and APPLE keeps a tight fist on their APP store, trying to weed out the bad (no pun intended) apples. 

I read an article on how Android phones had captured the market and were THE number one cell phone purchased, with APPLE coming in second. I think the author of that story was a tad slanted towards Android Phones, because as all of know, everyone but APPLE make a bunch of different phones using the Android OS, whereas APPLE sells one phone, and no one else has the rights to market a build of their own.

So there you have it, with HTC, Samsung, Motorola, LG, Sony-Ericsson and others making 2, 3, or 4 different models using the Android system it's a no-brainer that Malware writers are going to choose that group to spend most of their time writing nefarious APPS that will end up filling their pockets with your hard earned dollars.

'Nuff Said,
Brian
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