Google Removes 10 New Malware Apps From The Android Market
Here we go again. This seems like it’s becoming a weekly occurrence around the Android blogosphere. All I can say is this needs to stop. Like, yesterday. According to Xuxian Jiang, a professor at North Carolina State University, he found 10 apps from 3 different developers that were infected with a new type of malware (being dubbed as “Plankton”) in the Android Market.
Google was quick to respond (same day) and promptly removed all infected apps from the Market. The apps in question were mostly Angry Birds cheats and hacks and unlike previous malware apps, did not require Super User or root permissions to upload a user’s phone information to a remote server. While I would normally blame the user for downloading shady apps like “Nude Japanese Squid Girls XXX,” Angry Birds cheats is a totally different story. This new security breach definitely brings the spotlight on a glaring problem with Android’s Market.
All I can say is I’m getting a little fed up. I honestly hate reading about new malware apps week, after week after week. While locking down the Market somewhat would limit the amount of apps in Android Market, I think not doing so would cause more harm. If people become scared to download apps from relatively unknown small time developers, those devs will go elsewhere.
Of course, I would love to get our readers point of view on this one. Although there’s no easy answer, what do you guys think should be done about this difficult malware situation?
[Via MobileBeat]