5 Ways to Protect Your Android from Harmful Apps in Google Play Store

This week, Google announced discovery and removal of another malicious app, called Tizi, that had some powerful capabilities to spy on you like crazy, using a backdoor. 

Says Google, "The backdoor contains various capabilities common to commercial spyware, such as recording calls from WhatsApp, Viber, and Skype; sending and receiving SMS messages; and accessing calendar events, call log, contacts, photos, Wi-Fi encryption keys, and a list of all installed apps. Tizi apps can also record ambient audio and take pictures without displaying the image on the device's screen."

Scary stuff.

The app's creator even set up social media accounts to drive you back to the Google Play Store so you could download the app.

This post looks like a million others out there, right? So let's talk about simple ways to protect yourself from PHA's - Potentially Harmful Apps.

5 ways to protect your Android device from malicious apps

1. Check permissions: Be cautious with apps that request unreasonable permissions. For example, a flashlight app shouldn't need access to send SMS messages.
2. Enable a secure lock screen: Pick a PIN, pattern, or password that is easy for you to remember and hard for others to guess.
3. Update your device: Keep your device up-to-date with the latest security patches. Tizi exploited older and publicly known security vulnerabilities, so devices that have up-to-date security patches are less exposed to this kind of attack.
4. Google Play Protect: Ensure Google Play Protect is enabled.
5. Locate your device: Practice finding your device, because you are far more likely to lose your device than install a PHA.

Lastly, for our cybersecurity readers: see Google's technical details on Tizi.