A few days ago when Bitdefender experts released their analysis of the the popular Android app MoboGenie, everybody was in for a surprise. This app was not following safe practices to protect your privacy. The expert found out that MoboGenie, an alternate app store for Android users, could be leaking your private information when it sends a list of all the installed apps on your smartphone over to MoboGenie servers in plain text format over the WiFi. Actually it is not the only app that could pose a risk to your privacy. There are many apps which leak your mobile number, email addresses, contacts from address books to marketing and advertisement companies – without your knowledge. These risky apps can also track your location, send texts or make calls, play audio ads and more.
If you want to detect which apps installed on your Android device are harmful and risky, then you can use the free Bitdefender Clueful Privacy Advisor. Bitdefender has a cloud database of thousands of Android apps and their behaviors. The Clueful Privacy Advisor app can scan all the installed apps and tell you which of them could be leaking your personal information or causing you financial loss by making expensive premium calls without your knowledge.
As you launch the Clueful Privacy Advisor, it quickly checks all the apps that you have installed on your smartphone or tablet. Then it contacts the Bitdefender cloud server for retrieving information about all these apps. Based on the risk levels of installed apps, it calculates and shows a privacy score for your device. On my Android tablet, the score came out to be 70.
The installed apps are divided into three categories – high risk apps, moderate risk apps and low risk apps. The high and moderate risk apps are the most problematic and should be uninstalled at once. You can tap on these categories and see a list of apps that fall under that risk level. You can see details about all the apps and also gives you options to uninstall the apps. As you uninstall a risky app, your privacy score goes up.
Conclusion: The Bitdefender Clueful Privacy Advisor warns you about the apps that could be calling premium numbers, sending SMS or leaking your personal information to third parties without your permission. It allows you to uninstall such risky apps and helps you keep your smartphone safer.
You can download Bitdefender Clueful Privacy Advisor https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bitdefender.clueful.