[MrKurtz]

Instead of just regurgitating whatever is handed out to them, these publication ought to be more skeptical of the claims of a company like Lookout whose business is built on FUD, especially when they are spreading that FUD about the only platform that lets them make a living.

I'm not suggesting that there are no potential threats, what I'm suggesting is that they often omit the caveats and mitigating factors such as that the official Play Store doesn't host malware and even if something slipped in it wouldn't survive for long. The main concern would be about sideloaded apps and even then devices with Google Play Services installed (most of them) can still scan them: http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/07/28/googles-malware-scan...

Also Android 4.2 introduced premium SMS protection:

More control of premium SMS - Android will provide a notification if an application attempts to send SMS to a short code that uses premium services which might cause additional charges. The user can choose whether to allow the application to send the message or block it.

https://source.android.com/devices/tech/security/enhancement...

[zalew]

> devices with Google Play Services installed (most of them)

not in Russia (see the other comment sub-thread here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6149405).

[MrKurtz]

Good point, they should have made that distinction in the article.

[devindotcom]

The more interesting thing (I reported on it too) is the level of organization. If you read the paper, they have things set up more like an affiliate ad network than a cyber-criminal clubhouse. There are official rankings, contests, regular software updates, FAQs and how-tos, etc, many of them very nicely presented.

Of course the usual caveats apply to this kind of thing, but the presence of malware isn't interesting — the way it's being done is.

[babuskov]

I agree with you that article is FUD and has many facts wrong. However, the last thing you wrote about Android 4.2 is not that important as Android 4.2 holds only 6% of the market:

http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html