Looking beyond the external security of your android phone is one shift we all should make for our online security.
In our world today, focusing only on protecting your device with hard passwords is no longer enough.
This is because that phone you are protecting might contain an app that has a backdoor and is sending out your personal data.
Many are carrying trojans on their android phone today not because they want, but because their phone is installing apps on its own.
And others because they don’t understand the implications of the permission they grant to an app as they install them.
If you don’t know how to check app permissions before installation on the play store, there is a post here on that for you.
Granting an app more permissions than required will only expose your phone to data theft. Like installing a game on your android phone and granting it permissions to access your SMS during installation.
When such a game has a Malicious payload or backdoor. Then you have given someone somewhere power to read your messages remotely from his or her computer.
Or imagine also installing a calculator and you granted it permission to use your phone camera during installation. Such permission can help a bad actor to take pictures of you any time they want remotely.
In order to mitigate malicious attacks on your android phones that comes with over granting of app permission. We should learn how to grant an app only the required permissions for its functionality.
Another way to mitigate data theft is by downloading your apps from trusted app stores only.
How to Modify the Permissions of an App on Your Android Phone
One way you can protect yourself from app data theft on an android phone is by reviewing the permissions of the apps you have on your phone.
To do that, simply go to your phone settings. Then select the option Apps & notifications or Apps depending on your phone android version.
On the new page that will appear, select the option that views all your installed app list or the permissions option. Select or tap on any app you will like to modify its permission.
Once the app details appear as shown on the image below, select Permissions. Most times you will see the list of all the turned on options for the app under the permission menu.
Check if the permissions toggled on for the app is truly needed by it. Toggle off any permissions you think are not needed by the app using the toggle button.
For apps you don’t trust or use regularly, it is better you turn off all their permissions.
If you selected the permissions option instead, you can use the permission manager to know apps that are granted specific permission and also deny them from there.
Remember, an APK file can be recompiled with an added backdoor and redistributed online by bad actors. So, you should be mindful of where you get the apps you install on your phone.
Before now, it was cool for one to visit roadside vendors for their apps installations, or to collect apps through Xender from friends. But as things are going today. We need to always verify the source of the apps we collect and install.
