Android

Researchers have uncovered a remote code execution Android vulnerability that could be exploited with only a malicious media file and a phone number. The bug in Android's Stagefright multimedia playback engine leaves 95 percent of Android devices worldwide critically exposed. It is being called "Heartbleed for mobile," but will be prove harder than Heartbleed to fully fix.

Google is taking steps to make Android phones safer by including a verified boot system that checks for irregularities in the platform code. And device owners will know that their phone or tablet is safe based on startup messages from the system check.

Android Police spotted an updated Nexus support page showing the three possible boot verification messages.

If Android doesn't find any platform changes at bootup, the device will just start as it normally does. However, if there's a potential issue detected, one of three dialog messages will appear as a warning.

It's not long since we first learn about Android M at Google I/O and today Google launches Android M Developer Preview 2. As the name would suggest, this is a build aimed primarily at developers, giving them an opportunity to ensure their apps are ready to take full advantage of everything the latest version of the operating system has to offer.

Apple's latest iPhones continue to be in high-demand in Europe half a year after their launch, leading up to a market share boost on the old continent according to a new report from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. And it is happening at the expense of Android, which, while still the most-popular smartphone operating system in Europe, is seeing part of its local users fleeing to iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

Android 5.0 increased its share of devices by 4.3 percent in the past month, claiming 9.7 percent of Android smartphones and tablets in May.

It's a far cry from iOS 8's 81 percent adoption among iPhone and iPad users, but Google's latest Android iteration is slowly and steadily increasing its market share.

The latest figures from Google's Android developer portal show that Android versions 5.0 and 5.1 can now be found on a combined 9.7 percent of devices accessing Google Play, up from the 5.4 percent it had claimed in April.

The European Commission has officially accused Google of unfair and monopolistic search practices and concerns regarding the way the giant company affects competition. The authorities have also launched an investigation into Google’s mobile service through Android apps and services.

Android has been known to be the mobile malware industry's operating system of choice. Now Google has published a report claiming infection rates on Android devices are much lower than one may think.

While the overwhelming majority of mobile malware is written for Google-powered gadgets, the report claims that in 2014 less than 1 per cent of a billion Android devices in use had a malware infection, and that that figure dropped to 0.15 per cent if people only used apps from Google's Play Store.

Even though some Android device makers have already rolled out devices with embedded fingerprint sensors that offer users added security features, Google has yet to make it a core security feature for Android. But Google is still working on its own interesting solutions for temporarily killing the need for a PIN on smartphones, as the company has just added new functionality to Android 5.0 Lollipop that’s not only cool, but also very useful.

A total of 1,228 popular Android apps found in the Google Play store are still vulnerable to a FREAK attack, FireEye says.

Research published on Tuesday by the firm's security team disclosed just how vulnerable both Android and iOS apps still are to the FREAK bug.

Security experts have warned that 2,000 Android and iOS apps are still vulnerable to the much publicized FREAK flaw over a fortnight after it was first disclosed, exposing billions of users to data loss.

FireEye researchers scanned 10,985 Google Play Android apps with more than one million downloads each and found 1,228 (11.2%) were still vulnerable to FREAK.