Uni boffins: 'Accurate' Android AV app outperforms most rivals

German researchers have built an Android app capable of detecting 94 percent of malware quick enough to run on mobile devices they say bests current offerings in effectiveness and description. Daniel Arp, Konrad Rieck, Malte Hubner and Hugo Gascon of the University of Gottingen – together with Michael Spreitzenbarth of Siemens …

[James Dore]

Drebin?

Surely you can't be serious?

[Mike Bell]

Re: Drebin?

Don't call me Shirley.

[WonkoTheSane]

Re: Drebin?

I AM serious. And don't call me Shirley!

[Chris Miller]

Re: Drebin?

Just to be picky, that's from Airplane! not The Naked Gun, try:

Mayor: Drebin, I don't want any more trouble like you had last year on the southside. Understand? That's my policy.

Frank: Yes. Well, when I see 5 weirdos dressed in togas stabbing a guy in the middle of the park in full view of 100 people, I shoot the bastards. That's my policy.

Mayor: That was a Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar, you moron! You killed 5 actors! Good ones!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Drebin?

I believe the confusion is because both characters were played by Leslie Nielsen, complete with similar attire and mannerism.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Drebin?

"'Accurate' Android AV app outperforms most rivals"

Not exactly a hard achievement seeing as most rival mobile platforms don't have any malware to deal with....zero to date for Windows Phone and Blackberry - and almost zero for IOS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: outperforms most rivals

outperforms most rival Android AV software, silly! RTA!

[Jamie Jones]

Re: Drebin?

Poor trolling, Mr. coward.

This malware is dodgy stuff installed by users directly, if unwittingly.

It's nothing to do with hacking vulnerabilities, so even if your comment was true, it would just mean that malware writers haven't bothered with those platforms.

[Haku]

Re: Drebin?

Cigarette?

[sabroni]

Re: Cigarette?

Yes, I know.

[DuncanL]

"Who are you and how did you get in here?"

"I'm a locksmith and.... I'm a locksmith"

[Graham Marsden]

From the files...

... of Police Squad!

[Obitim]

'Is this some kind of bust?'

'Yes, it's very impressive'

[Benjol]

"Nice beaver"

"Thank you. I just had it stuffed."

Just reading the Wikiquotes brought tears to my eyes.

[Jim 59]

Virus?

By some definitions of "virus", many modern apps are viruses, in that they purport to do some legitimate thing, while covertly capturing your personal data and farming it out to agencies and associates.

[Charles 9]

Re: Virus?

Perhaps, but by most accounts that better describes a Trojan Horse (a malicious payload disguised as a legit program but not a legit program in and of itself). For it to be a virus, it has to piggyback on a legitimate third-party program or medium the way the flu does.

[Come to the Dark Side]

Nice (Best Evaluated Anti Virus Engine Research)....

[RobZee]

94% ?

According to AV-TEST around 30 of the Android AVs they tested exceeded this figure, so am I missing something here?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally a use for that quad core CPU and 3GB RAM

These guys want to drag down the performance to single core 256MB level, just like AV software (other than, amazingly enough, Microsoft's Security Essentials) drags down the performance of a modern PC to 1998 levels.

[Pookietoo]

Re: amazingly

Why is it amazing that a product which is better than nothing, but not by much, doesn't use as many resources as more capable software?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: amazingly

Why downvoted for paraphrasing MSFT, who stated that Security Essentials is designed to be bottom of the antivirus rankings?

[Anonymous Coward]

Need antivirus on a phone? Welcome to reduced battery life.

Also performance hit. And while I'm sure malware does get side loaded onto androids, it remains the Windows 95 of the mobile world, relatively. It's got a huge install base and malware has been distributed from Google Play (see recent stories regarding purges of malware, which has happened a few times in the last couple of years).

Relative to the other mobile platforms this makes Android *relatively* unsafe to use. The necessity for antivirus is regrettable but necessary, it seems.

And before any of you jump on that, you're all educated, savvy users who recognise permission requests, dodgy app premises etc: you have an advantage. Android products are used by people who can't be expected to develop that depth of knowledge - and won't.