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There are some weird sentences in this that make it very confusing: "Installation of a Trojan application from the device manufacturer" Ok, so the manufacture

• mikeash 13y ago
  I think he means an application which is "signed" by the manufacturer but actually comes from a malicious third party.
  • BHSPitMonkey 13y ago
    But how did it get there? I'm pretty sure the device would have to be rooted, and the user would need to have run some code written by the attacker and allowed it run with superuser privileges (or haphazardly followed some malicious tutorial online, e.g. "follow these steps to install new themes!" or "use this tool to unlock your phone!").
    • antocv 13y ago
      You install an app from the Play store that is very normal, it only requests Internet permissions. Then after a week or so, it wakes up and downloads its payload which with it can modify itself, transforming itself to seemingly be the Gmail app you are so often using, while moving the real gmail away. Then you continue using and updating "gmail" like you normally would, except you know, its now using a proxy and no ssl.
      • BHSPitMonkey 13y ago
        I'm not sure it could covertly replace Gmail as you describe without being granted super user rights.