Database Info

[Q] Backing up apps

Just curious:
Let's say I purchased an app from the Marketplace, and it was later delisted. Using Windows Phone Device Manager, I can back up the individual files for my apps, but is it possible to also restore them? Say I had to do a hard reset, or uninstalled an app, not realizing it was delisted. Is it possible to put the app back on my phone? Additionally, it's my understanding that pirated Xbox Live games will not have achievements available to them. Therefore, if there IS a way to restore apps that I've uninstalled (or otherwise lost), will it enable Xbox Live functionality if it's backed up from my phone and restored to my phone?
I did a search of the forums, but didn't find an answer, so I apologize if this has already been asked. Thank you for your time.

This won't work. There's more to an app than just its install files; it also needs to be registered with the AppMgr (this is what does things like put it in the app list) and also needs a security chamber (basically, a user account) created with custom permissions (each app runs in a different chamber).

GoodDayToDie said:
This won't work. There's more to an app than just its install files; it also needs to be registered with the AppMgr (this is what does things like put it in the app list) and also needs a security chamber (basically, a user account) created with custom permissions (each app runs in a different chamber).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So there's no way to ever reinstall a deleted app if it's no longer in the Marketplace? ... Damn. That sucks.
Still, thanks for your reply. Much obliged!

Yamishi said:
So there's no way to ever reinstall a deleted app if it's no longer in the Marketplace? ... Damn. That sucks.
Still, thanks for your reply. Much obliged!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There should be if you check your dl history on the WP site. You can redownload apps from there and if it works anything like the Xbox marketplace, this will include delisted apps. Haven't had to do it myself yet, so cannot be sure but worth a try.

Gorki247 said:
There should be if you check your dl history on the WP site. You can redownload apps from there and if it works anything like the Xbox marketplace, this will include delisted apps. Haven't had to do it myself yet, so cannot be sure but worth a try.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FYI, the Marketplace does not work like that for WP7. If you try to redownload an app that you previously had (free or paid) that is NO LONGER on the Marketplace, with the Reinstaller App for example, it will not find the files to do the download.
However, if you know who the developer is/was, might be able to contact them and have them send you the XAP....

[Q] How can I test an .apk to see if it's "safe" to install?

Hi,
Sometimes an app (.apk) is either simply not available through Google's store, or it might say "not compatible with your device", etc. There can be various reasons why a person might download a .apk from somewhere other than a "trusted" source.
If this was a file for my PC I could test it in a "sandbox", and I could scan it with both Microsoft Security Essentials and Malware Bytes Antimalware.
On my Android phone(s) I'm not aware of something like the "sandbox" option, and I don't really want to run an "antivirus" program on my phone. Is there an easy way to scan .apk files on the PC to see if they are rogue apps, might send SMS, "phone home", or otherwise mess with other applications or the system software installed on my phone?
Lets give another example: say I thought 15 minutes was not long enough to evaluate a relatively expensive Android game (it certainly isn't!) and I want to test it out first. Let's assume my only option in that case might be an illegally downloaded copy from unknown sources. Of course, we shouldn't do that. But if we did, how could we know if the file is safe and not risk installing some Chinese spyware?
About Android AV programs: anybody know how effective they are? Do some defend against "trojans" - I would think these days trojans are 99% of problems and viruses mostly a relic of the past?
My biggest concern is actually just unwanted crap that runs in the background which eats up battery, makes my phone warm (which I hate), or, perhaps even sends SMS message [this would be even worse because I don't have a text message plan].
EDIT: I see web pages with tiles like "new study finds Android antivirus apps not effective" and articles like this one: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/...bouncer-does-it-offer-enough-protection/17981
Do we have an easy way to boot Galaxy S3 off of "external" SDCARD instead of internal memory?

Search play store for avast antivirus, completely free, updates daily and works really well (firewall. Anti theft. And many more Features
sony xperia ray ics 4.0.4
stock rom unrooted

I found this website, maybe it can help someone.
h t t p://scan.netqin.com/en/
Maybe someone can post another one...

an easy way to check for safe apk
The easiest way to check for safe apk is to have one gmail account and another "whatever" email account. Then just send the apk from the gmail one to the second account, gmail always find viruses in any apk and stop the process to join the file (virus alert). Bad point is you are limited with the size of the file you wanna send.

Nowadays, even pc antiviruses can detect viruses in apks. I would rather not burden my phone with any android antivirus,since they are literally battery hogs.
sent using my HTC One S

Go here and upload the APK
http://anubis.iseclab.org/
Anubis is a service for analyzing malware.
Submit your Windows executable or Android APK and receive an analysis report telling you what it does. Alternatively, submit a suspicious URL and receive a report that shows you all the activities of the Internet Explorer process when visiting this URL.
Andrubis executes Android apps in a sandbox and provides a detailed report on their behavior, including file access, network access, crypto operations, dynamic code loading and information leaks. In addition to the dynamic analysis in the sandbox, Andrubis also performs static analysis, yielding information on e.g. the app's activities, services, required external libraries and actually required permissions.

Found a good one too
apkscan.nviso.be - give it a try. Drag and drop - wait for the upload - than click SCAN . Wait for a few minutes. That`s all. Unlike ANUBIS it has a resolution at the end of the analysis . Usually helpful.

You can also email the file to [email protected] and it will email the report back in about ten minutes. Virustotal can display some interesting info, for example it said that Lucky Patcher is a "Potentially Infected Hosts File (v)", as reported by VIPRE and AVware.
Virustotal also has an official android app.
The Netqin scanner is also an android mobile app.

Late answer, sure, but I think ClamAV is what you want. You also want its bytecode signature file, and to speed things up, you only want that single file (speeds up things quite a bit).
It is the only offline apk scanner i know of, and as for its efficiency i cannot say, but it seems like it is what you are asking for.
An alternative would be to install something like BlueStacks and remap your "Windows shared folder" (through registry) to the folder you have your apk files in, and then run BitDefender on it. BD is by far the most pernickety AV app out there for Android.

I'll have to check out bitdefender (it's also included on virustotal.com)
apkscan.nviso.be seems to be pretty good at analyzing files for suspicious activity, and it also uploads the file to virustotal for you. Then you can copy the sha256 hash into the virustotal's search, to get all the gory details.
anubis.iseclab.org limits files to 8 megabytes.
Another way to avoid malware is:
when installing an update to an already-installed version of an application, it will 99% of the time prompt you to update an existing app. There's been rare instances where some apps do use a new digital signature (for example when spotify had a big security hole, and for awhile there were two apps by spotify in the app store).
One other way to tell, as a final check when launching the apk for installation on the phone: the icon will not have the right icon. I've installed apps before that I thought came from a trusted source, but the icon was not right. In fact, I was considering not posting this publically, so the "bad dudes" would not update their methods.

Another tool I found:
http://andrototal.org/
Although it might be a duplicate of virustotal.

nintendo1889 said:
Another tool I found:
http://andrototal.org/
Although it might be a duplicate of virustotal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just tried out this site. To me, it appears to be the most thorough virus testing site that I have seen. It takes some time for it to complete the scans. mainly because it scans the file with about 7 or 8 different scanning engines. Just just have to keep refreshing the page every few minutes to see if the results have updated.
I will be using this one as my go to site for apk scanning.

Just install it on the default emulator in the Android SDK
You can also install your apps on other emulator live bluestacks(best for games), jar of beans(best for rooted app) and windroy(the lightest)
Hit thanks if this helps

nintendo1889 said:
I'll have to check out bitdefender ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your signature photo ... awesome ... Bad Dudes

By using GDATA security , When you want to install an app the GDATA will scan it befor installing
Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk

Use google scanning service VirusTotal to scan any app, secondly always use secure source. There are many well reputed apk sites but I personally use apklink.com , on this site required apk file is just a click away and its quite easy as well...
be safe & secure

This threads out of date, but it has me thinking I want to use something as mentioned in several replies to OP.
Are there any sites, or apps that can warn me if an .apk (for example) has malware etc.?
Thanks in advance for any help, including a link to another discussion that may have my answer

denise1952 said:
This threads out of date, but it has me thinking I want to use something as mentioned in several replies to OP.
Are there any sites, or apps that can warn me if an .apk (for example) has malware etc.?
Thanks in advance for any help, including a link to another discussion that may have my answer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Malwarebytes can detect malware.
Sent from my LGL84VL using Tapatalk

I tried this site and I like it because it goes into a lot of detail after analyzing and sends me a report in email. It was mentioned, and it is still available to use: https://apkscan.nviso.be/
Thank you for the heads up on MB, I use that on my PC and works great

You can use virustotal.

Question about android security

So i am just wondering, there are so much different apps for android on the market, and most of them has a lot of access to phone's functions. Now for example i am always logged in to Gmail, and theoretically can a random app scan and copy my gmail's data and send it trough internet? Really curious..

Kblavkalash said:
Now for example i am always logged in to Gmail, and theoretically can a random app scan and copy my gmail's data and send it trough internet? Really curious..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This question is not really an issue of Android security this is a question about general security. Can an app look at your gmail app directly and copy data and send it out...not exactly no, an app can't forcibly connect itself to another app to scan data.
However...
That question is actually not relevant because such a task is unnecessary for malicious apps. Lets say you install a malicious app that wants to copy your gmail data. What it will do is not watch the app itself but it will watch the network packets being sent to and from the app, logging and tracking those.
This is not the only way to get the data though because any data saved on your sdcard is accessible from an app if you give it permission to do so.
The MOST important thing to look at when installing an app is the permissions the app is requesting when it installs. This can be confusing as well because some apps will request full internet access because they need it but this can also be used by a malicious app to steal your data.
The important thing to do is research. The more you learn about the app the better off you are.
-------
Just to clarify, this applies to all apps of any kind on any platform including but not limited to Android, iPhones, Blackberry, Windows Phone, WebOS, Windows PC, Mac OSX, Linux or etc. - ALWAYS learn as much as you can and are comfortable with before installing anything...if you are not comfortable with a particular app or learning more about it then don't install it. That is not to say it may be malicous, it is just to say it could be a bad idea for other reasons. (for example, if it is a developer tool or a configuration tool that you don't understand or haven't researched enough to understand...then you could potentially damage your device with something that is a legitimate tool)

Kblavkalash said:
So i am just wondering, there are so much different apps for android on the market, and most of them has a lot of access to phone's functions. Now for example i am always logged in to Gmail, and theoretically can a random app scan and copy my gmail's data and send it trough internet? Really curious..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
edit

MichaelTunnell said:
This question is not really an issue of Android security this is a question about general security. Can an app look at your gmail app directly and copy data and send it out...not exactly no, an app can't forcibly connect itself to another app to scan data.
However...
That question is actually not relevant because such a task is unnecessary for malicious apps. Lets say you install a malicious app that wants to copy your gmail data. What it will do is not watch the app itself but it will watch the network packets being sent to and from the app, logging and tracking those.
This is not the only way to get the data though because any data saved on your sdcard is accessible from an app if you give it permission to do so.
The MOST important thing to look at when installing an app is the permissions the app is requesting when it installs. This can be confusing as well because some apps will request full internet access because they need it but this can also be used by a malicious app to steal your data.
The important thing to do is research. The more you learn about the app the better off you are.
-------
Just to clarify, this applies to all apps of any kind on any platform including but not limited to Android, iPhones, Blackberry, Windows Phone, WebOS, Windows PC, Mac OSX, Linux or etc. - ALWAYS learn as much as you can and are comfortable with before installing anything...if you are not comfortable with a particular app or learning more about it then don't install it. That is not to say it may be malicous, it is just to say it could be a bad idea for other reasons. (for example, if it is a developer tool or a configuration tool that you don't understand or haven't researched enough to understand...then you could potentially damage your device with something that is a legitimate tool)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good answer, you are right!, but you say do a research before installing, but it's not really possible unless you are a programmer and checking whole code The best rated apps still have many different permission requirement and i have no idea what they are doing.
For example app can request a new password change for example on paypal and steal packets which come to my gmail about new password.^^

Security Apps
Hi,
in my eyes the best way is to use programs like PDroid. You cann adjist the rights of every App regarding send SMS for example.
LBE Privacy Guard may be also an Option. (runs not on my Device - SGS+)
(i use Pdroid 2.0)
you should also read the comments in the store, and the needed rights from the app before install. The best Apps to trust are open source apps.

Kblavkalash said:
Good answer, you are right!, but you say do a research before installing, but it's not really possible unless you are a programmer and checking whole code The best rated apps still have many different permission requirement and i have no idea what they are doing.
For example app can request a new password change for example on paypal and steal packets which come to my gmail about new password.^^
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Research generally involves a Google search...
Editor's Choice in the market are safe bets, you know, the blue icon.
But then there are the millions of other apps, and frankly, I tend to toe the app name plus xda for instance, Google will show you xda threads about the app, if the posts are normal, you can be sure it's not malicious.
Stuff like that...
Also, fake market comments are really easy to spot and are a dead giveaway
Sent from my GT-I9000 using xda premium

[Completed] [Q] Please, I want this!! (please read and solve it)

Hello, I need xda's help.
This is for a learning tab that uses in academy. This app makes that we can download apps, but these apps are gone because this app intercepted downloaded apps. In addition, this app intercept apps that app was in tab. Like internent, chrome, maps, google+, youtube and so on. And it makes that we can't use another aps in class. So this was a describing this app. I want that first, we can download apps and we can use it for permanent. Secondly, I can use another apps in class. Thirdly, we unlock apps that was blocked. Finally, this was a very hard for me. This three apps has administrator rights. If we want to release it, this tab is restarting. This app is asssociated with chungdahm learning. I want you to we can use another apps for permanent, next, use another apps in class, thirdly, I want to unlock apps that blocked. Finally, to release administrator rights. I will link it for Dropbox. It has cdi launcher 2.4.20, cdi guardian 2.2.9
Sorry but I'll upload cdi utility later. So I want you to modify these three apps.
But it's ok that you modify these three apps for that we can use another apps for permanent. Thank you. And if you modified it, can you send these three files for [email protected]? It is my gmail. If you give me an email to this, I'll give you a file for you.

Y.kuramoto said:
Hello, I need xda's help.
This is for a learning tab that uses in academy. This app makes that we can download apps, but these apps are gone because this app intercepted downloaded apps. In addition, this app intercept apps that app was in tab. Like internent, chrome, maps, google+, youtube and so on. And it makes that we can't use another aps in class. So this was a describing this app. I want that first, we can download apps and we can use it for permanent. Secondly, I can use another apps in class. Thirdly, we unlock apps that was blocked. Finally, this was a very hard for me. This three apps has administrator rights. If we want to release it, this tab is restarting. This app is asssociated with chungdahm learning. I want you to we can use another apps for permanent, next, use another apps in class, thirdly, I want to unlock apps that blocked. Finally, to release administrator rights. I will link it for Dropbox. It has cdi launcher 2.4.20, cdi guardian 2.2.9
Sorry but I'll upload cdi utility later. So I want you to modify these three apps.
But it's ok that you modify these three apps for that we can use another apps for permanent. Thank you. And if you modified it, can you send these three files for [email protected]? It is my gmail. If you give me an email to this, I'll give you a file for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
There are reasons that your academy blocks these apps.
I do not believe you will find help here on XDA in order to bypass these restrictions.
Best regards
malybru
Forum Moderator

Is it possible to create this?

Hello,
I'm interested in getting this coded but would first like to know if the idea is even possible and if so if it will require root or not.
Basically I'd need an app that would be able to communicate with a website running WHMCS. The person would have an account there and login through the app. The app would then scrape login information in this format usernameassword and then somehow interact with Netflix, Hulu or Sling (maybe editing there system files?).
That's basically the idea, you'd open the app, press a button, lets say for Netflix, once you press the button it would edit the login files and then launch the app in question, in this instance it'd be Netflix.
So, is it possible for a 3rd party app to be able to edit login files of other apps and then launch said app? And if so would it require root access?