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but the reason android has been targeted lately is only due to the fact that there are more people using android phones, so they become more attractive to hackers. on the other hand the same thing is happening to linux where as more people are beginning to use it then it will become more attractive to hackers. which is what has happened to apple. apple has already acknowledged that their system can get virus/malware. linux has already gotten some and it will increase if it becomes more mainstream.
which comes back to the original question. the only person that can keep your information secure is yourself. I have yet to get a virus on my android phone.. nor have I heard of anybody that got malware that made thousands of calls costing hundred of dollars. and I know a lot of people that have android phones. my department has about 30 people about 20 have android phones with about 15 rooted, 2 or 3 guys still have iphones and rest have just a regular cellphones. none of us has ever gotten a virus/malware.
in our company with about 900 employes just based on what I have seen I would say most use android phones over iphones. and to be honest most have switched from iphones to android. but regardless we still have about 1/3 using just regular phones with just basic functions like text. of those that have android phones the only time I have ever heard anybody getting malware was from my brother. he downloaded some app a couple of years ago. it did make some calls but he was promptly refunded by verizon for all the unauthorized messages/calls cant remember which one.
semp
So are you saying car crashes never happen since none of your acquaintances had one recently? The fact remains that Android as a platform is the riskyest platform currently to be on. The whole business model leaves it open for exploits and it's only a matter of time before you also start running into them. Android is only popular because it really has no reasonably priced competition in the mobile market - that and general consumers do not know enough to care about security.
On a prepaid connection Android is just fine as long as you don't do any banking on it. Banking on an android phone is nearly as foolhardy as is on a used windows computer
You can't compare linux to android directly because content distribution method is totally different there AND linux lacks operator backdoors which are rampant in Android devices. Backdoors enable privilege escalations without user verification and that makes Android as poor in security as any old windows.
Just two weeks ago my son got a nasty malware on his computer despite having up to date Microsoft Security Essentials running on it. All that was needed was his friend sending a download link to minecraft. Click-click kaboom.
Now his ears are still red from the lecture and I took away his right to install stuff. Luckily I had just imaged the computer fresh after installing the OCZ Revodrive III so recovery was relatively painless.