E-books are becoming more popular in America. Reasons: space saving, accessibility, the ability to read directly from your smartphone or tablet. Electronic “readers” provide a lot of conveniences for those who love to read and are not limited to paper books only. Experts of Roskatchestvo’s Center of Digital Expertise checked whether or not e-books are that good? Spoiler: there are also some apps you should not install.
In 2019, the volume of the American market of electronic and audiobooks reached 6.5 billion Dollars, an increase of 35% relative to 2018. According to the results of the first half of 2020 continues to grow. The largest player in the e-book market “LitRes” reported a 35.6% increase in revenue during the pandemic, its main competitor MyBook – and even by 74%. Roskachestvo experts checked Google Play store for potentially unsafe applications-“readers” and found several suspicious programs.
Recall, readers – a family of applications that allow you to read on your smartphone e-books in popular digital formats such as EPUB, PDF, FB2, and others. Before the advent of smartphones, these programs were usually used on PCs and in specialized gadgets. In the readers there is a wide range of options for adjusting the image, backgrounds and font size, automatic page turning, reading text aloud, the ability to make a bookmark and so on.
In the course of testing the applications were analyzed:
– Accesses requested by the application.
“Recall that excessive access permissions that an app does not need to perform its main functionality for example, access to the camera, photo gallery, phone book and others are suspicious and can be used by unscrupulous developers for mercenary purposes,” says Anton Kukanov, head of the Roskachevo Digital Expertise Center.
– Ads. In one form or another, advertising is present in most apps, as developers need to monetize their developments. In some cases, however, the ads can be potentially harmful.
– The app’s attempts to contact a remote web resource. For an app that does not involve downloading content from the Internet, requiring external Internet access is highly suspicious, as there is a risk of data leakage to unknown parties. Internet access is generally not required to perform the basic functionality of reader apps unless they are services with their own cloud library, like LitRes .
What was suspicious?
In terms of requested access, two unpopular applications – EBooki Reader – Best EPUB PDF Reader and Aurora Reader- Read EPUB, PDF, TXT Books & Novels – have aroused suspicion among experts. They have requested excessive access, which may be characteristic of malware, namely, access to call management and address book phone numbers. This is fraught with the fact that phone numbers from the address book can fall into the hands of criminals who, for example, will send spam or your phone can make uncontrolled calls for example, to paid numbers – fraudsters’ mousetraps .
In the PDF Reader for Android app from Reader Tools there were links to a fraudulent resource, namely, to a nonexistent file storage with a compulsive offer to download a movie. The danger lies in infecting your smartphone with any file downloaded from such a repository it may be a miner or trojan . In this case, it is likely that there is abuse of ad integration by scammers and a lack of control by the developers or ad service .
Two apps – Ebook Reader by Apps for Anybody and Lea Reader – refuse to work without internet access. First, it is inconvenient for the user, and second, it raises questions about security and hidden functionality. Given the fact that such applications are free, it suggests that in this way the developers get data about the network and the user’s device for subsequent monetization of this data. Also do not exclude the banal error on the part of the developers, when applications are created with “open source” and include modules that require a permanent connection to the Internet. Most likely the truth is somewhere in the middle, but either way it speaks against the developers.
Recommendations for those who like or would like to read books in an app:
– Only download apps from official stores e.g. App Store, Google Play, Huawei App Gallery . Pay attention to user reviews and app ratings, developers’ responses. If the reviews are negative, the responses are sparse or suspicious, and the scores are low, it is best to refrain from downloading such an app.
– When choosing an app, give preference to readers from well-known developers and with a large number of downloads. All potential problems were detected in obscure applications.
– When you install a reader app, pay attention to the accesses it asks for. It is better not to risk,
If you don’t understand why the app needs these permissions and don’t provide them, or choose a different app.
– The book files themselves should also not be pirated: a file downloaded from an unreliable source, disguised as a book, may well be a virus. The consequences can be unfortunate, such as losing your personal and payment information.
– Always use antivirus on your devices, update it regularly and check the downloaded files with it.
– Do not forget to update both the applications themselves and the mobile operating system. Developers regularly fix detected vulnerabilities and improve the quality of apps with each new update.
What criteria or signs did the Roskachestvo experts use to identify suspicious electronic readers, and how can we as consumers spot them before making a purchase?
What were the specific aspects or features of these electronic readers that led the Roskachestvo experts to categorize them as suspicious?
Could you provide more information on the specific aspects that were found suspicious in the electronic readers?
Can you provide more information about the suspicious electronic readers discovered by Roskachestvo experts? What kind of suspicions are they raising? Are these devices posing any potential risks or concerns for the users? Are there any specific brands or models that we should be cautious about?