Mobile Security Review September 2012
| Release date | 2012-09-05 |
| Revision date | 2012-09-04 |
| Test Period | August 2012 |
| Number of Testcases | 18021 |
| Online with cloud connectivity |  |
| Update allowed | |
| False Alarm Test included | |
| Platform/OS | Android Mobile |
Introduction
Mobile phones are becoming more and more widespread. Smartphones are slowly but surely replacing “just a telephone” devices. In particular, the extensive messaging and Internet functions are becoming ever more popular. This brings some problems, however. The very features that make smartphones popular also make them interesting for criminals, who attempt to infect them with malware or steal sensitive data. Phishing and similar attacks are particularly threatening.
The following products were reviewed in this report. The manufacturers either provided the most up‐to‐date version, or confirmed that it was available on Google play at the time when the test/review took place. After the review, the manufacturers had the opportunity to fix any issues/bugs we found, and these improvements are noted in the final report.
Tested Products
IKARUS mobile.security 1.1
TrustGo Antivirus & Mobile Security 1.1
Test Procedure
The test was carried out on real phones with an active connection to the cloud. The test‐set consisted exclusively of APK files. Each single file was first scanned on‐demand (where possible); afterwards an attempt was made to install each file manually, one by one. This was done in order to evaluate the products’ detection capabilities, as most mobile security products only scan the files during installation. We would like to thank all the students who helped us in carrying out this enormous task.
We also performed a false‐alarm test based on 200 popular (and not ad‐supported) clean applications. None of the products reported any false alarms on those 200 popular apps.
Testcases
In this test, we used only malware and adware appearing or persisting within a limited time frame, in order to represent the current threat state. The Android malware used was collected between March 2012 and the 13th July 2012. This means that the malware test set was limited to 18,021 malicious apps (about 75 main families). The mobile security products were last updated the 14th August 2012.
Test Results
The chart below shows, that the protection rates against real Android malware are very high. This might be due to the increasingly aggressive detection by app reputation for apps that are not on Google Play, but maybe also because many of the participants in our test are leading mobile security vendors with good protection rates.
Award levels reached in this Mobile Security Review
Notes
About half of the apps on Android markets are ad‐supported in some way. Some apps containing adware annoy users with messages e.g. on the notification bar, making it difficult for ordinary users to know which app is responsible for showing the ad. There are several dedicated adware detectors on the market; this may be because some mobile security products by well‐known vendors do not yet detect adware.
Copyright and Disclaimer
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AV-Comparatives
(September 2012)