Android: Which app rights are dangerous?

When installing Android apps, you will be shown all the necessary rights. In this article we show you which of them are dangerous.

Dangerous Android app rights - you have to pay attention to this

Some apps also need "dangerous" rights to work. Other apps, on the other hand, only have these rights to collect data or misuse them for various things. You can therefore not rely solely on the app rights.

• Send short messages: As the name suggests, the app is allowed to send SMS. This can be useful if, for example, you want to invite a friend via SMS to a specific messenger. However, apps with this authorization can also send SMS without your knowledge and in the worst case conclude an expensive subscription.
• Read / change contacts: With this permission, apps can access or change your contacts. Many Internet messengers like WhatsApp require this authorization - otherwise they will not work. With this authorization, apps can also read out your contacts and sell this sensitive data, for example.
• Calling telephone numbers directly: The situation here is similar to that for short messages. This authorization can be very practical, for example to call a contact quickly from a messenger. Apps like Skype need this authorization. However, apps with this right can also cause damage here - for example, calling paid numbers without your knowledge.
• Delete / change USB storage content: With this authorization, apps can access your entire storage. Accordingly, this can be helpful or harmful. Since Android version 4.4, apps with this authorization can only access the internal memory.
• Read confidential log data: With this authorization, apps can read and process the log data of other apps. This log data can be very sensitive data. Very few apps need this authorization. You should therefore be very careful here.
• Read / identify phone status: On the one hand, this authorization is used to end app activities when you start a phone call. However, with this authorization, the device numbers "IMEI" and "IMSI" can also be read out. You could be located with this data. However, many developers use the numbers to protect themselves from pirates.
• Unrestricted Internet access: Only with this authorization will all other "dangerous" rights become interesting for criminals. This is the only way to upload and download data without your knowledge. Unfortunately, almost every application uses this right because it is almost always necessary.
• Change security settings for the system: If an application needs this authorization, you should be aware. In fact, only developer tools need this permission. A normal app does not need this under any circumstances.