Norton, McAfee tackle user privacy in Android mobile security apps

Security software makers McAfee and Norton recently added features to their Android apps designed to help users control who can interact with the sensitive information on their smartphones and tablets.

The focus on privacy is aimed at drawing more consumers to pay $30 a year for the apps, which traditionally have been touted as protection against dangerous apps that the security industry calls malware. But Google, which spearheads development of the Android operating system, has said that malware is a mild threat. And consumers have a harder time wrapping their head around malware than privacy.

The latest version of McAfee’s app lets users set up multiple user profiles. For example, a smartphone user could create a children’s profile. Then, the user selects apps safe for children to use when borrowing the device.

When that child’s profile is turned on, everything else would be inaccessible until the device owner enters a six-digit code. The profile features work by switching the default user interface, technically known as an app launcher.

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Both McAfee and Norton also scan the apps installed on a phone and offer insights into what data the apps access, including contacts and text messages. The McAfee app, for example, identified the Google Play store app as a medium threat on my phone. It rated a slew of other apps as safe while failing to provide any data about other apps, including popular ones such as Vine and Yelp.

Norton’s privacy tool similarly notifies a user if contacts, call logs or photos can be exported by an app. Although it makes sense for Instagram to be able to access photos, a blackjack gaming app probably shouldn’t need the same permission.

Anti-theft features in the app enable a user to remotely wipe data off a phone or track it down if lost or stolen. But the tools can be disabled if the thief or the person finding it resets the phone. Only a LoJack feature available in the Samsung Galaxy S 4 is immune from the hard reset. Still, McAfee marketing director Lianne Caetano said its security app has “helped users locate their devices millions of times.”

The privacy and app-scanning features could be good deals for people who regularly let others borrow their phone or download apps without doing much research.

But Google seems to be tackling privacy directly in Android, too. And those features are free. The newest version of the Android operating system, 4.3, includes functionality for multiple user profiles -- at least on tablets.

On both smartphones and tablets, Android 4.3 has a hidden feature, App Ops, that enables a user to fine-tune the access an app has to various data.

Adrian Ludwig, Android’s lead security engineer, said in an interview this week that security features are added as broad appeal develops for them.

“Where there is a common problem, it would make sense for us to consider pulling in features to solve it,” he said.

ABI Research senior cybersecurity analyst Michela Menting said fewer than 500,000 individual consumers pay for mobile security apps. But she said that figure should slowly rise as threats evolve and it becomes easier for people to protect multiple devices with a single subscription.

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