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Summer 2013 App Reputation Report to examine the hidden behaviors behind free and paid mobile apps

The cloud-based, fully automated Appthority App Risk Management Service performed static, dynamic and behavioral app analysis on the 400 most popular free and paid apps on the iOS and Android platforms.

Appthority analyzed each app for particular behaviors within a test environment

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Highlights from the App Reputation Report are:

- Overall, 83% of the most popular apps are associated with security risks and privacy issues.

- iOS apps exhibited more risky behaviors than Android apps. 91% of iOS apps exhibit at least one risky behavior, as compared to 80% of Android apps.

- 95% of the top free apps and 77.5% of the top paid apps exhibited at least one risky behavior.

- 78% of the most popular free Android apps identify the user's ID (UDID).

- Even though Apple prohibits its developers from accessing the UDID, 5.5% of the tested iOS apps still do.

- 72% of the top free apps track for the user's location, compared to 41% of paid apps.

- Although paid apps already generate revenue when downloaded, 59% of paid iOS and 24% of paid Android apps still support in-app purchasing.

- Furthermore, 39% of paid iOS and 16% of paid Android apps still share data with ad networks.

Security firm Cenzic said it found serious mobile application vulnerabilities, such as dangerous Web service errors, in an analysis of the mobile apps it reviewed in 2012.

An analysis of the thousands of applications reviewed by Web application security firm Cenzic found serious lapses in judgment resulting in gaping holes that could be used by an attacker to siphon off sensitive data from smartphone and tablet owners.

There are some surprising numbers available that tell a dark story about mobile apps and what they can be doing on your device.

By now you've read about malicious apps that leak privacy data, but do you realize how serious it really is? If not, you'd better pay attention to the following statistics gathered by Symantec*. And if you think that Google Play is 100% safe, it isn't. I have some data that yields some shocking results about the number of malicious apps waiting to grab your data.

===> Unfortunately, the playing surface for Internet naughtiness has changed in the past couple of years and you need to know that it's only getting worse. <===