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Google was quick to ban a no-good publisher and remove his 21 Trojan infected applications from the Android Market after receiving a tip from AndroidPolice.com. According to AndroidPolice, the publisher took 21 popular free apps from the market, laced each one with root exploits, and then republished them. While Google's response time was nothing sort of swift once it found out about the foul files, they had already logged 50,000 to 200,000 downloads combined in 4 days, AndroidPolice says.
Infected apps ran the gamut from casual games to a handful that Borat would likely have installed on his smartphone (you can view the full list here). With the root exploit in place, publisher "Myournet" would be able to steal data from infected devices and download even more code to continue wreaking havoc.
This latest incident may give Android App Store proponents pause for concern on whether or not Google's less restrictive policy is the right way to go. Apple maintains much tighter control over its App Store, resulting in fewer apps but also decreases the chance of something like this happening. Could there be a happy medium?
While Google tries to figure that answer out, Android users would be well advised to download with caution.
Comments are closed on this article
mesiah
March 03, 2011 at 5:16am
I think a happy medium would be to have Regular apps and google certified apps. You could download anything you wanted, but you could rest assured if downloading a "certified" app.
bandeezee
March 03, 2011 at 12:30am
Anyone know how to check if you've installed one of the infected apps? I can't check my phone now, because Google remotely removed all infected apps. While that is nice, I would've have liked some kind of contact or notice so I would've known if it was one of the apps that I had installed. Any info on this is appreciated.
violian
March 02, 2011 at 11:53am
This is of great concern. On my Palm Pre for instance, a lot of my log-in passwords are stored in the browswer - ranging from PayPal, eBay, Wells Fargo. If a hacker got those data, they'd be able to take money out of my Paypal, buy stuff on eBay, and siphon money out of my bank-account through money transfers and such. I'd rather have a restrictive policy like Apple to have peace of mind. And not only that, you'd think a more restrictive policy would also encourage developers to make more quality apps.
DRAGONWEEZEL
March 02, 2011 at 10:03am
Best Where's Wally Photoshop Ever!
Seriously, most of the Malware on that list is titled like crapware. Who downloads this stuff?
BTW, finally rooted my D2, stock roms & Kernel, OC'd to 1.3Ghz & LOVING IT! Now I can have apps, and the thing still works at the expected speeds!
