Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Android Phone Security Applications

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Topic: Android Phone Security Applications

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 10-23-2010 06:51 PM

I've been trying to find out more information about a number of different security applications available for mobile phones running the Android OS. Some of the reviews really don't provide enough details on how the applications run, what the company providing the service is doing with user data and what safeguards they have to prevent a thief from disabling or deleting the program. Since at least a few FT members have Android-based smart phones, I'm looking for their feedback on whether they have used any of the following applications or did some similar looking and evaluating.

Since there is a growing variety of different kinds of security applications in the Android market to make things more clear I am primarily interested in the applications that track your phone and remotely backup or delete data on the device in case it is lost or stolen.

The three most popular security applications for lost/stolen phone tracking are Lookout Mobile Security, Mobile Defense and Wave Secure.

I would probably have Mobile Defense installed on my HTC Evo4G if the program's developer hadn't pulled it back into "private beta" during July. If you visit the site's download page you'll see a waiting list sign up form.

Mobile Defense appears impressive for a number of reasons. First, a thief would never know it's installed on the phone. There's no icons or other visible UI trash present. Mobile Defense can be installed as a system application so it cannot be removed. Mobile Defense uses hardly any system resources; the program pretty much remains dormant until you command it to do something from your account on a personal computer. Mobile Defense uses a combination of GPS, mobile tower triangulation and Wi-Fi to track the phone's location -that way even if the Wi-Fi and GPS features are turned off the phone's location can be pin-pointed. If a thief puts in a different SIM card Mobile Security will e-mail you all the account details about that SIM card (my Evo 4G doesn't use SIM cards). By the way, Mobile Defense is free.

Lookout Mobile Security has similar phone tracking functions as Mobile Defense. Plus it has an anti-virus function. AFAIK, there are currently no viruses for the Android OS (a recent rash of reports in early August about the first Android virus turned out to be false).

Verizon has been pushing Lookout Mobile Security as a feature for its Android phones, but the application is freely available for just about any Android-based smart phone running on any service provider's network. It also runs on Blackberry and Windows Mobile platforms.

My concerns about Lookout: it uses more system resources and drains the battery faster, I'm not sure how it tracks the phone's location (GPS only? tower triangulation, etc.) and I've read user complaints about what the company could do with user data. They apparently have a "EULA" with some rather scary language in it that raises all sorts of privacy concerns. Some people have even leveled spyware charges against Lookout.

Wave Secure used to be freely available when it was in its beta testing cycle. McAfee bought the company. Now the application requires a $20 per year subscription. It has similar security and tracking functions as Mobile Defense and Lookout Mobile Security (remote lock-down, tracking, remote alarm, data backup, etc.). In addition it has a "buddy system" where up to 10 friends can help locate your lost or stolen phone using their phones. After all, you're probably not going to have immediate access to an Internet connected PC if your phone is lost or stolen.

All three of these applications have remote wipe as a "coming soon" feature. Even so, when you consider just about all Android phones have a removable MicroSD card, a thief might remove the little SD card before you have a chance to remotely erase any personal data off of it. It's probably a good idea not to have any data useful for identity theft saved on the card.

The three applications appear to vary on their ability to remotely back-up data to a computer. To be fair, many smart phones already have their own applications that can back-up contacts and other data. Additionally, most Android phones can be mounted as external hard disc drives. Data such as camera phone photos and what not should be backed up to other disc drives on a regular basis anyway.

By the way, I did some looking to see if similar applications were available for the iPhone platform. That doesn't appear to be the case. My understanding is Apple will not allow third party developers to create such applications. Apple does sell its own phone tracking service, which I was told cost $99 per year. One of my coworkers found out about this when her daughter's iPhone was stolen a few weeks ago.

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