Avast places flashlight apps’ permission requests in the spotlight

guest · Sep 10, 2019

Avast places flashlight apps’ permission requests in the spotlight
September 10, 2019
https://www.scmagazine.com/home/sec...ht-apps-permission-requests-in-the-spotlight/

An Avast researcher shed some light on the number and invasiveness of the permissions requested by various publishers to download and install their flashlight app.

The security firm’s analyst Luis Corrons looked at 937 Android flashlight apps available and found on average each required 25 permissions ranging from the basic and obvious need to access the flash to those that were harder to understand, such as, the right to record au dio, read contact lists or to kill background processes. Corrons could point to three permissions that are truly required, flash access, Internet access and screen lock.

“Taking a close look at some of these, permissions like KILL_BACKGROUND_PROCESSES, are very powerful and can be abused for malicious purposes, for example, it could be used to kill a security app. However, the use case of some flashlight apps is to reduce the battery consumption, so you can use the app longer,” Corrons wrote.
Corrons noted that just because the permissions are requested does not mean the apps are malicious.
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Avast: Flashlight Apps on Google Play Request Up to 77 Permissions

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