Android market share in the mobile OS market has doubled since last year. With Nokia's planned departure from Symbian, the expectation is that it will grow lot faster. However popularity is not without its malice. Recently some news exploded that showed that hackers are particularly targetting Android based smartphones.
Here is one very recent article from Computerworld on how a rogue Android apps is used as Trojan horse to use resources in an Android-based phone. The users wouldn't even know that his phone is sending text messages to premium sites and thereby increasing their bills. It is alleged that many telemarketers are using hackers for this kind of uses. But it looks less malicious compared to this story from CNN. CNN reports today that Google has just pulled 21 popular free apps from the Android Market. According to Google, the apps are malware aimed at getting root access to the user's device, gathering a wide range of available data, and downloading more code to it without the user's knowledge.
However, the report also tells that before Google's corrective action, 50,000 users have already downloaded those apps and thereby got exposed. These users are advised to take their phone to their carrier/provider or the seller and get those devices checked against these malware.
So, if you are Android smartphone user, be prepared for similar attack till Symantec, McAfe launches Android anti-malware suites.
It looks like Android is creating a strong revenue channel for likes of McAfe/symantec.
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