Android: Google’s new look at malware

Every so often, Google comes up with a presentation that plays down the risk to Android users from malware. An article of mine that Infosecurity Magazine has just published – #RSAC: Android: malware? What malware? – looks at the implications of an RSA 2015 presentation by Lead Android Engineer Adrian Ludwig, deprecating the use of the word malware to describe ransomware, Trojans etc. because it’s ‘confusing’. The presentation is interesting for its insight into current Google security strategies, but in my book, unilaterally changing the terminology used to describe malicious software so that it sounds less frightening is too close to whitewashing to be useful.

David Harley
Small Blue-Green World