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Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Malware Discovered in Android Market

The growing popularity of app stores for mobile applications has attracted the attention of malicious hackers hoping to spread malware that could potentially compromise a user's security and expose personal information. The latest example is a report that Google had to scramble this week to pull at least 20 applications from its Android Market after the website Android Police reported that they were infected with malware.

"There's another APK hidden inside the code, and it steals nearly everything it can: product ID, model, partner (provider?), language, country, and userID," the post adds. "But that's all child's play; the true pièce de résistance is that it has the ability to download more code. In other words, there's no way to know what the app does after it's installed, and the possibilities are nearly endless." Android Police updated its report to note that Google moved extremely quickly to pull the offending apps.

Symantec estimates that a thousand new apps are uploaded to Android Market every day.

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