A wake-up call for us to all be more careful out there…

CamScanner, the popular scanning and PDF creating tool has been found to have a Trojan Dropper module, which is essentially a malware that replaces and “drops” malicious code onto the app’s resources. Simply put, cam scanner basically holds malware now, or at least the free version of the app does. Kaspersky lab recently released this information going further to show that it’s not the actual CamScanner app that has malicious code, but rather the free version of the app’s recently integrated advertising library. This would mean whoever CamScanner made an advertising deal with is the one who has the malicious code, but let’s face it, since the two are currently not separated at the point, it would mean you should likely delete CamScanner as soon as possible for the time being.

Now why this bums us out so much is because well, really though? Honestly each week you here more and more reports of security vulnerabilities on Android and other software platforms (including Windows, iOS and Mac so don’t you Apple fans start sounding off in the comments about how safe you are) and it’s honestly a little unnerving. Remember how paranoid most of us were when we learned our PC’s and laptops could get viruses? And we got paranoid about people’s USB drives or going to certain sites on the web? That level of paranoia was probably uncalled for back then, especially if you had and antivirus, but now it actually might be more applicable. You see, back then all we had to do was deal with computer viruses. Now since almost everything is a computer, we have to deal with “everything viruses”. Your phone, computer, tablet, smartwatch, TV, games console, headphones, cars even fridges and stoves are all potential targets for some version of a malware attack if they are newer, “smarter” devices. It doesn’t matter who the brand or manufacturer is. About a month ago Apple had to deal with a Facetime vulnerability that would let people spy on your Mac through its camera while Samsung was literally reminding people online to regularly run Antivirus scans on their smart TV’s! It’s as crazy as it sounds and one of the arguments against having driverless cars has actually been that since they’ll essentially become rolling, self-operation computers, what happens when that computer is compromised somehow. These are all scary thoughts to have, and to be fair we don’t exactly want you guys to be paranoid either. But we do want you to all be warier of the many dangers we face with all the devices we love to use, something which is harder to conceive for the normal human as viruses or malware attacks probably still don’t resonate with someone as say, immediate physical danger. But these dangers do unfortunately exist and since the companies that make these products aren’t doing a good enough job of that (Google Play Protect anyone?), we all have to keep a little careful eye over the security of our devices. So for starters, Android users, get rid of CamScanner, Microsoft’s Office Lens and Adobe’s Scan app are sufficient, arguably better alternatives. Keep a trustworthy Antivirus on all your devices (we recommend AVG for PC and Android phones). And perhaps we all be a little more careful about where we spend our time online, especially those of us who tend to download series everything in the not-so legal way on pretty shady and barely protected sites.

The simple fact is, our world has become a lot less safe as far as cyber-crime and cyber-threats are concerned. It’s not fair. And it’s nowhere near comforting. But it is the world we live in. A world where our own devices are technically a risk. Thankfully, Zim being Zim, we probably aren’t the exact target of these attacks, but it doesn’t leave us safe either, and a little caution with our devices might go a long way from this point forwards, no matter what device you use.

Tell us what you think of this whole security issue, whether you’re concerned bout all your devices now, or if you still had CamScanner in the comments and on social media.

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