Cyber criminals are taking advantage of the 2012 Summer Olympics as an opportunity and a cover-up for more malware to infect your devices and steal data.
Anti-malware and anti-virus solutions provider Webroot has issued a warning that because there are so many events happening at one time during the Olympics, it might be all the more tempting when viewers find an app available that focuses on one or just a few.
One an app called "London Olympics Widget," which is described as an app that displays aggregated Olympic news coverage harvests your contact list, device id (IMEI), and reads your SMS text messages.
Although the Amazon Appstore for Android and Google Play sites do not screen every app in the store for malicious code they do remove apps that are reported to be malicious to them.
Exercise caution whilst downloading
Not all apps are what they appear to be. Always exercise caution when downloading apps for your Android Device.
If an app that changes your background wallpaper wants access to your contact list, Twitter and Facebook account you should probably reconsider its use.
The official London 2012 mobile app can be downloaded from the site: http://www.london2012.com/mobileapps_download.html
If you are unsure how to decide what a trustworthy app is? Webroot covers this in detail in the article “7 Common Mobile Security Questions Answered.”
Read more about the press release on Webroot's website.
Please note: Action Fraud is not responsible for the content on external websites.
To report a fraud, call Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or use our online fraud reporting tool.
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