A few months ago, Google opened its Android Market for anyone to upload his software on it.
Opening the marketplace is an important step to offer a broad variety of applications to end users, however, it also entails risks. Contrary to Apple, which traditionally prefers to keep in charge of any single aspect relating its devices, Google has an open door policy, which grants access to any developer wishing to join its projects.
This strategy has some advantages. The Android Market has reached an astonishing number of several thousand applications at the time of writing this article. Probably, it will surpass the 100 thousand mark any time soon.
Some random analysis showed that an average of one out of five applications could gain access to personal information about your device. This could lead to the creation of all types of viruses, spyware or malware. The possibilities behind such programs can spawn beyond our worst fears. Probably, some developers would create evil programs for some economic reason, while others would simply do that the pleasure of creating a worldwide known virus.
Carrot App-Android Apps
In July 2010, it was found the first spyware application – named “Carrot App” – for the Android operating system. The application masks itself as a calculator for the end user. In fact, the application has the ability to send one e-mail per hour to the email address of the developer. The e-mail contain all SMSs sent and received from that phone during the last hour. This is one of the many ways to create an application to get real personal information of the device. Since the discovery of this trojan, anti-virus programs have increased their virus database to ensure complete security against such programs, also for Android.
Recently, several wireless security firms have also detected other malicious programs, which include a media player that purports to be harmless but is actually a trojan that starts sending text messages to phone numbers at premium rates. It runs on the background and the owner is not able to know what is going on until he gets the telephone bill. This trojan is actually sending money from the user’s account to that of the cyber criminal.
All malware – for Android or PC – behave exactly like in the both cases above. However, being Android actually a cell-phone, it has extra capacities that a PC does not have. It has a connection which can be exploited by the trojan to wreak havoc.
More Apps: http://www.droidforums.net
Popularity: 1% [?]
foot_ad