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If These Apps Are Still on Your Phone, Someone May Be Spying on You

which apps you trust with your privacy and which ones need to go. The bad ones are likely guilty of one these top mobile phone security threats.

Only get mobile applications from the legit stores,” he explains, referring to GooglePlay and the Apple store

checking how many reviews an app has before downloading it. Ideally, anything you add to your phone will have already been used and reviewed by thousands of other people.

CamScanner, an app meant to imitate a scanner with your phone, as one of the apps consumers should be concerned about. “Cybersecurity experts have found a malicious component installed in the app that acts as a Trojan Downloader and keeps collecting infected files,”

“Check your weather app,” says Shayne Sherman, CEO of TechLoris. “There have been several different weather apps out there that have been laced with Trojans or other malwares.”  OR access the weather app site from a Chrome browser

Facebook - “If you are looking for apps to delete to protect your information, the absolute worst culprit is Facebook. The sheer scale of their data collection is staggering, and it is often more intrusive than companies like Google. If you had to pick one app to remove to protect your data, it would be Facebook.”

Whatsapp - “The vulnerabilities with WhatsApp—both iOS and Android versions—allowed attackers to target users by simply sending a specially crafted message to their phone number. Once successfully exploited, the attackers would be granted access to the same things WhatsApp had access to, including the microphone, the camera, the contact list, and more.”

Instagram - Whatsapp and Instagram are both owned by Facebook, which is part of what makes them all a risk. Dave Salisbury, director of the University of Dayton Center for Cybersecurity and Data Intelligence, says that Instagram “requests several permissions that include but are not limited to modifying and reading contacts and the contents of your storage, locating your phone, reading your call log, modifying system settings, and having full network access.”

Facebook Messenger - “Deleting Facebook Messenger is a no-brainer, based upon the company’s frighteningly lax approach to protecting user privacy,” Tomaschek says. “The messages you send and receive using the Facebook Messenger app are not encrypted, meaning that all your messages are plainly viewable to any Facebook employee with the appropriate permissions.”

Flashlight apps >> READ the details in the store before you download on data permissions etc >> We bet you didn’t see this one coming. “Free flashlight apps are often of high cybersecurity risks,” says Harold Li, vice president of ExpressVPN, a consumer privacy and security company. “Many of these apps are free but ad-supported, and they often request permissions, such as audio recording and contact information, to apparently function properly. When users install these apps, they risk sharing their personal data with app developers who monetize the data by selling them to advertisers.”

Door Dash app -  when you open the app, you are sending your data to nine separate third-party trackers. This data includes information like your name, email address, and physical address, along with the make and model of your phone. Furthermore, Facebook and Google ad trackers are also being used by the app, which means that the two tech giants know every single time you open the app.”

Dating apps >> Tinder and Grindr both collect over 50 percent of your personal data

Candidate Solutions

Fix Face Recognition Not Working

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tndp1_JZYJo

steps to reset face recognition

from lock screen remove face recognition test

go to security > biometrics > turn off face rec

reboot phone 

reset face rec in security > biometrics

add face rec to lock screen methods again

IF that does not resolve issue

device care > diagnostics > face rec test

Download Custom Android Apps to Android Device to test on Android Auto

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