Why do almost all my apps have permissions to sensitive data?

[cap15]

I'm on the Samsung galaxy tab 3 running kitkat. Recently while looking though apps manager I noticed almost all my apps have permissions to sensitive data and security. This set off a huge alarm in my head since I have never seen this before, also apps being granted permissions from other so called "system apps". My guess is some kinda of virus, no idea how I got it, so I deleted all downloaded apps and attempted to uninstall apps that I was unfamiliar with. Most of the apps I have never seen before I can not remove or turn off and a factory reset did not remove them either. I'm at a loss any help would be great!

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! What kind of sensitive data do you mean? It's common for apps to require permission for things like your contacts and phone state, for example, because it might have the ability to share things with your contacts or it might need to know if your phone is receiving a call so that it can pause activity.

Remember that KitKat and other older Android versions did not have the granular permissions that Marshmallow has--so if you installed an app, you had to grant it all of the permissions that it needed all at once. I'd guess that most of the apps you're concerned about are legitimate--but since you didn't give us any examples, it's hard to know for sure.

 

[cap15]

Hi diddy, sorry new to the whole forums thing Here are a few examples.

Add or modify calendar events and send emails to guests without the owners knowledge.
Read calendar events plus confidential information.
Read your own contact card.
Find and use accounts on the device.
And many more...

Also a few examples of the permissions granted from other apps such as badgeprovider and snoteprovider are,
Com.infraware.provider.snote.permission.read/write
Com.sec.android.app.sns3.permission.sns_fb_access_token

Others include system modifications, read/write logs, network options, ect.

 

[B. Diddy]

These are all pretty standard. badgeprovider and snoteprovider sound like Samsung apps, so the chances of malware are zero. And for those other permissions you mentioned, apps need many of these permissions in order to do the things they're designed to do. If you're using well-established apps from reputable developers, you're pretty safe. I'd be more cautious about apps without too many installs, or those that have a number of reviews that complain about malware or adware.

 

[cap15]

Only reason I'm unsure is I recently used a friends old sd card and since then is when I notice all this. Is it possible for the sd to have loaded malware or anything onto my device and cause this?

 

[B. Diddy]

Extremely unlikely. In order for malware to cause problems, the user generally has to manually install the malicious app. I suspect it was just a coincidence that you just started noticing these permissions after using the SD card.

 

[cap15]

Well it is a relief to hear that nothing serious is going on. Thanks a lot for your help B. Diddy!!