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Which apps can you trust? And which apps are out to use your data and can compromise your privacy and security in the process? These questions are on the top of everyone’s minds these days as we hear more and more about apps that sell your data to third-party advertisers. But the apps that you may think are the worst offenders (like Facebook) actually aren’t the biggest culprits of this potential security breach. This is the one iPhone app you should never trust, according to security experts.
Before we even dive into the one app you should never trust, William Cannon, CEO of Signaturely, suggests gaining an understanding of how this trust is measured by tech security pros.
“The one way which is widely used by security experts and researchers to identify which app is naughty, and which is not, is to see the app's scope of permissions,” Cannon says. “If an app, say the Weather app, asks permission about accessing contacts, messages, device storage; albeit location - this is a clear indication of unwanted intrusion.
Having said that, here is one iPhone app, which I myself and several security researchers, find very annoying and unethical - you will be surprised!”
With this information in mind, you may be scanning your brain to consider which app tops the list when it comes to potentially breaching your security. Is it Instagram? An old standard like Facebook? A streaming app like YouTube?
Winzip Utilities
The correct answer, according to Cannon, is none of the above.
“You must be expecting Facebook, WhatsApp, or Pokemon Go-like apps, right?” Cannon says. “While they are dangerous too, Winzip Utilities tops my list because of few reasons:
Winzip is a productivity tool used by professional users community. File compression/decompression covers all kinds of documents: legal, confidential, health, and personal documents - sometimes with sensitive images, too.”
Here are some of the ways Cannon says Winzip can be bad for iPhone users:
**Winzip requires access to every major section of your phone: contacts, messages, storage (internal/external), and most dangerously, a partial administrative privilege!
**In an analysis carried out by AppAuthority, Winzip is found to contain malware in its code for iPhone
**Winzip is also found in breaching/sending a user's email, age, sex, and location to third-party trackers.
“Therefore, considering its usage for almost all serious and professional matters, Winzip utilities had to be severely checked for both iPhone and Android communities,” Cannon says.
So, while Facebook isn’t off the hook because it still uses your data in ways that are questionable, a deeper dive reveals other apps like Winzip that are even more potentially threatening.
