Apps Android Security Measures

[kilodi]

Hey I am a student working on my research/ independent study on the Security concerns of the new bread of smart phones my main focus is on Android OS. I am new to Android community and don't have much experience in using them either I do plan to buy Samsung Galaxy S in the coming month if i save up enough, fingers crossed

I have noticed the computation power of the smart phones are now rivaling laptops and notebook and so are their Operating Systems. People tend to login their personal and also professional email accounts and social network accounts with them. I am concerned, if the communication of such data like their passwords or even posts are encrypted during transmission whether on 3G or Wifi. If they are secure from sniffing attacks as wireless communication already is the weakest when it comes to security.

You can save lots of information on these devices whether personal or professional. But can you secure it by encrypting it or just have a strong password for it. I know iphone only has 4 character password which is easy to break just by brute forcing, however Android seems to have a pattern combination lock for the phone but i was wondering if it followed a strong encryption method when storing it on the phone.

I would like to get feedback from the anyone whether users, however I really would appreciate a response from experts in development of Android ROMs and applications. If they even consider security as a function in their apps and if they do, what sort of methods do they apply. What measures are taking for security during development of the apps.

I know this is going to be a obvious question but I would like to know if anyone can prove to me with evidence (studies/ research from reliable sources) which OS between Android, iOS, Windows 7 (mobile os) and symbian is the strongest in security and encryption. Which has the least loopholes in the OS, the protocols they use, etc.

I did read couple of post by people regarding security and encryption on forums with people having concerns about security and workaround to them however i would appreciate it if anyone you can explain to me the above mentioned things in as layman language as possible.

I really appreciate all the effort from the community
Thank You.

 

[alostpacket]

You can start here:

http://androidforums.com/android-ap...ps-avoid-viruses-guide-those-new-android.html

I think the first question people need to ask themselves is what level of privacy and sercurity do they imagine they have? What level do they want?

I think sometimes people worry that someone could get a hold of their phone number, but we've had phone books for years before cell phones. So there is a bit of undue worry out there. But there is also a lot of the opposite. People who don't give sercurity a second thought. Luckily I think there is a happy middle ground.

Anyways, from an app dev's perspective I've tried hard to keep my users comfortable with security by not requesting the internet permission. That way they know I couldn't share their contact data even if I wanted to.

Another good thing is that Android employs a system by which apps can verify a user's account with google, without actually knowing the account details. (Without getting too technical, the app is given an authentication token it can use instead of your actual account data).

Anyways hope that gets you started.