GitHub - Divested-Mobile/Hypatia: A realtime malware scanner
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A realtime malware scanner. Contribute to Divested-Mobile/Hypatia development by creating an account on GitHub.

It seems all apps from Divested were archived in December, particularly the antivirus app Hypatia. When you try to update the signature database, you get a 404 error, so I guess the development of this app is dead. Does anyone know of any alternatives or similar apps? Or is it not really necessary to have an antivirus like this on Android?

  • Sonalder
    3·
    4 hours ago

    Mobile operating systems like Android are way more sandboxed than traditional desktop OS. Even though the situation has improved on desktop, especially on macOS and some GNU/Linux distros, sandboxing is more of an iOS/Android thing.

    On Windows, most people are admin users, which is a role with admin privileges. You’re not running these by default on macOS or GNU/Linux, and you’re not allowed to on your mobile. Both Android and iOS require an exploit to root/jailbreak to get admin privileges.

    This doesn’t mean that macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS can’t get any malware. But by default, a phone OS gives apps very little permissions. Of course, apps can ask for them and trick the user into giving them. Some permissions give higher privileges, and you don’t want every app to have those.

    So, no, what you want is education, not an app with privileges to verify everything is okay. I don’t say antivirus are useless, but you have to realize what it means to offer another app all these privileges. Fortunately, Hypatia has pretty basic permissions, but that means it also makes it less efficient than modern antivirus, as it works more basically.

    Simply reboot your phone often and don’t install shady stuff. It won’t prevent the NSO Group from selling a spyware with 4 0-days exploits to a Nation State to spy on your device, but Hypatia won’t either.