Rival app stores should cooperate to improve the security of their downloads, an EU security agency advised. The security of apps should be as important as its functionality, the group argued Tuesday.
“Currently, there is no incentive for, example, Android developers to invest in a lot of security, because their apps will be listed with less secure apps that were developed in one day by amateurs,” said Marnix Dekker, co-author of the cybersecurity agency ENISA report.
The report, which details steps app stores can take to improve user safety, promotes the idea of recommendations based on a developer’s security reputation. Instead of only recommending apps based on their functionality, users should be able to learn how well security safeguards are developed.
But for the concept to work well, it must be shared by all app stores. Currently app store security teams do no cooperate, which the Dekker termed “counterproductive and not very efficient.”
The group also recommends smartphone makers create a ‘sandbox’ environment for testing newly downloaded apps. This would ensure smartphone owners do not fall victim to malicious apps which can take control of a handset or email private data.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
