What is your Android security setup these days?

Is pretty ironic to read how people from this forum who are very concerned about privacy and security on their computers, running pretty much any security crap they find in the Play Store. Really, I know it's your phone and you can do whatever you want with it but take a look first at XDA forums and do some basic google research before you go frenzy on your android devices.

I'll just add that CM Security, Clean Master and all their apps are well known for being intrusive, bloated and often not very privacy-oriented.

 

Are there other apps in addition to the CM products that you feel are poor quality?

 

This browser was last updated in 2012 and how can you even use it with such a horrible interface !!

 

Apart from my VPN widget and AdAway (only use it for the TCP dump feature), nothing else has been installed in relation to security.

 

Sophos, that's it.. Adguard caused me issues, and Android is already fairly secure.

I can't 'break' anything around here without causing major issues, so we stick to Sophos-Android. Which by the way, scored top last AV-Test.

 

At the moment........
Eset Mobile Security
AdGuard Premium
LastPass Premium

 

@Sherlock_Holmes
Thank you! For the information!

"This browser was last updated in 2012" Is not good!

Uninstall!

 

Agreed, and wonder why people seemingly don't care much about permission and privacy.
I never use CM Security or Clean Master, too many permissions and questionable history of dev.

 

I've been using CY Security for a while now. It's a fairly basic antivirus without extras like anti-theft, but does have RAM and junk cleaners which I don't use. But, it use's Kaspersky's scan engine, and it is very unobtrusive. It only shows notifications after scanning a newly installed or updated app, or to suggest you run a scan if it's been a week since the last scan. Other than that you never see it, which I like.

 

Hmm I wonder if you are right.. according to security reviews & tests CM-Security seems to be one of the best in protection & performance.

 

I'm not talking about detection rate, that's not so important for me unless exceptionally low.

 

Ye I know u are refering to privacy related problems. But since their product gets such good results I am wondering if privacy is really causing troubles with CM.

 

About CM Security and their not-so-transparent practices... their official thread on XDA (notice their account is currently disabled)

 

- Cyanogenmod - Privacy Guard Enabled by Default
- SuperSU - Root Access management
- AFWalll+ - IPTables Firewall. Restrict most apps and especially Keyboard app.
- Smarter Wi-Fi Manager - Disable Wifi when NOT in known location (by Cell Towers)
- ROM Toolbox Pro (App Manager) - Remove all unnecessary system apps, backup etc
- AdAway - Hosts file manager
- Android IMSI-Catcher Detector - Detect and avoid fake base stations (Stingray etc)
- Disabled Trusted Certs in Settings -> Security -> Trusted Credentials to match "Mozilla Included CA Certificate List", and still removed some Government and Foreign CAs
- Trustable by BlueBox - To review system settings and achieve a score of 10 for trustability
- TextSecure - To send and receive encrypted SMS
- Telegram - For encrypted chats and non-profit non-advertisement nature of telegram in general
- Ghostery Broser
- FireFox - Open Source, non-profit
- Paid VPN
- ChatSecure - For encrypted chats on Google/Hangouts

 

Tho I'm here not to attack CM, their app tries to connect internet once per 2 hours. Many of them are to Amazonaws, but some are to their server in China (phoning home). If you didn't uncheck statistical info sending setting, it sends many info including your device UID. If unchecked, still it sends some statistical info such as app usage count. Remember what Cheetah = Kingsoft did in desktop software. Displaying ads would be acceptable as a free product, but they collect your browsing and searching habit, associate them with what you entered on registration, and they can share those info w/ 3rd party w/out your additional permission, according to their privacy policy.

 

Wow great list, will be usefull when my Nexus 6 arrives (hopefully this week)

Thanks, I guess I am not going to install CM products on my Nexus 6 then

 

Can you recommend any AV app ? So far I used AVAST (but it seems to big) and CM Security (privacy problems).

 

You can browse others' responses for recommendations. May be a bad practice, but I only occasionally run AV on Android. The way I see it, apart from the additional backup/remote-lock/Firewall(in case of Avast) features, they only serve to scan installed applications and I am pretty selective about installing apps on my android. I do not play games etc on the phone and avoid all major social or communication apps primarily out of privacy concerns. However, if you will be installing a lot of apps you can go with ESET or SOPHOS as free options; I hear great things about both, however SOPHOS only has cloud-scanning which may or may not be a privacy issue.

I believe others on the thread can offer more insight.

 

Form a quick research it seems like ESET is quite good but I am not a fan of paying it yearly. 360 Security seems decent as well but I am not sure if I can The trust The Company and The APP. No idea right now.

Also i will change my DNS to nortondns in Android.

 

A little update on DNS settings:

I purchased the app "Override DNS" as it seems to be the only one working on Android 5.0 as well as all the other DNS-Change apps were last updated 2012 and "Override DNS" was updated 2 days ago. It offers what I need, has a good interface and seems to be active. It changes DNS for 3g,4g and Wifi. I think a must have !

Still not sure about which AV to use. I really want one even though I never really install any apps (and then mostly from play store). So it should be something lightweight that only does the standard scan every few days but still has a very good dedection rate. ESET is currently my favourite but paying yearly for an app is... meh :/

 

I am sorry to add another post and quote another person but....Yuki which AV do you use? I am not only in need of an AV for my new Nexus 6 but also for the soon-to-be-delivered Note 4 of my girlfriend

So far:
Override DNS to have NortonDNS on 2g/3g/4g/wifi
Disabled some certificates on android 5.x
AdAway with malwaredomainlist
App Ops to disable permissions on some apps
Telegram - For secure chats
SuperSU - For root management
And obviously my phone is encrypted eventhough it slows down performance

I will also add the use of my personal VPN since I can't find any app that will properly use SSH-Tunnel to encrypt traffic when I am on an "unknown" wifi.

Thanks again !

 

I haven't rooted my phone and currently use OEM version of McAfee which runs in system privilege as my device maker made it so. Usually any Android apps run in user mode with sandbox restriction, it means real-time protection is impossible in exact sense. When you download malware app or went to phishing site via stock browser, AV will warn and block them AFTER thing occured, as they use Android built-in mechanisms. This is why behavior blocker is impossible on Android so most AV rely on signature and primitive heuristic (also battery is another matter).

My McAfee runs on system privilege and protect in real-time, but actually benefit is not much. Android 4.0+ don't allow newly installed app to automatically launch itself, so even when you installed malware still you're safe until you launch it. So it only makes sense when I visit exploit site and IF that exploit is known to McAfee it can block before exploit launch unlike other AV's webshield, but so far no ITW remote browser exploit against Android is known. I may drop McAfee.

I rely much more on Noroot firewall and SRT Appguard to protect myself, tho Achilles heal is I have to trust those 2. Basically you shouldn't expect much to Android AV as they have many restriction (tho as you rooted your phone, some of them may be addressed if you run AV in admin privilege). It's just better than nothing. So see AV-Test or other tests you like and pick anything you can trust that performed more than 90% protection, then the problem left is performance. For anti-theft, built in device manager is not bad and maybe your mobile career also provides such service if you're cautious about its possible privacy impact and agreement.

Reccomendation for security aware user like you is not much, I think best in security is replace your OS with Guardian ROM, or Cyanpgenmod (bit less security) but already other member gave good resource about them. So if you want to keep current setup, consider to use firewall (iptables front end, not VPN dialogs type as it conflicts with your VPN), and consider to use encryption program such as EDS, Encdroid, or maybe there's better one for rooted phone. Android default encryption won't protect your SD card or when your phone is active (after you entered PIN).

But if your girlfriend is those who don't care permission and install anything she want, then AV will have some sense. I installed Avast for my girlfriend's phone with custom setting. IIRC I disabled file shield, web shield, "save logs to file", community IQ, promotion related notification, and made tray icon grey as orange one stands out too much. And scheduled full scan once a week.

 

Thanks, I also thought I would use Avast/ESET Free for my girlfriends Note 4.

How ever back to my Nexus 6:
Actually a "file scan" every now and then as well as a check for "security/exploit vulnerabilities" (+ fixing them with a click) is what I need. SRT AppScanner seems to do that? But it doesn't have many downloads and reviews say it's kinda buggy. So to re-phrase my question becaus it was actually really wrong:

Which security scanner (including files and loop-holes on the phone) do you recommend? All the other features (anti theft, sms/phone block, ...) are useless in my opinion. I basically need something that checks the system on schedule once a week and eventually scan a file when I download/install it.

For sms blocking I use handcent's built in blocker and for phone blocking I use "Calls Blacklist".

Thanks

@Edit: I just used SRT AppScanner but it didn't give me any warning altough I have "malicius" files installed (zANTI, Faceniff, droidsheep, ....) and trustable by bluebox reports system vulnerabilities.

 

For vulnerability scan and for malware, you have to use different app. For former purpose, I use Belarc security advisor. It shows OS vuln as well as app's if there is any, but one click update is not available―but to be honest, is it really needed? Usually all apps should be updated automatically, even when you disabled it still manual update is easy.
As to malware scanner, don't rely on it. As I said, exact real time monitoring is impossible on Android (it may seem to be real-time, but actually it's after-the-fact scan), and Android AV can't scan protected apps (I thought Google anounced sth regarding this, but forgot it). Once malware got admin privilege, it can kill AV w/out problem as AV runs in user privelege.

Also, mobile greyware is quite prevalent and I don't think any AV can detect them well. Those apps display privacy policy and EULA, and works on them w/out showing obviously malicious behavior. But they may collects your info and send it to cloud just like Facebook or other famous app do. Once info reached cloud, no one knows how they treat those info. AV can't scan their cloud ofc.

Strict checking for permission before you install sth is much more important to avoid Android malware & greyware.

Remember, largest security breach on Android is not the malware, but device lost or theft. So you have to check if your device manager or sth (if you use other) correctly work.

And my answer is same, any AV which doesn't got terribly bad score on tests and don't impact performance heavily. I have used some apps but don't know their current status, besides gengerally I'm not inclined to comment or advise someone to use particular product. At least those will be candidate (free only): Avast, AVG, Avira, Bitdefender, Dr. Web. As to ESET, free version don't update automatically. If you have multi-license for desktop AV, using it will be good choice. I have Norton & Kaspersky license but don't use for some reason.

 

Thanks for your detailed answeres. I would still feel safer in my device (and also for my girlfriends device) if I/we had something to scan files/apps fir malware. I just found bitdefender free which has very good detection rate over the past months/years and it is simply an file scanner (on demand + new downloaded stuff in "realtime"). So that seems very lightweight and worth the installation.

What makes me think about choosing ESET is:
System check (risky setting + vulneriabilities)
Call/sms blocker (one that has a proper interface...not like all the other blocker apps I found so far)
And obviously file scan
Too bad its phishing protection won't work with firefox

Thanks again for your great help !