Has Google’s Android already faced its first battle with malicious software? It’s not clear whether a batch of banking apps (applications) recently removed by Google from the Android Market were actually malware. But the apps, created by an anonymous developer named 09Droid, certainly raised some suspicions.
Because they were unsure of the legitimacy of the apps back in December, some banks, including BayPort Credit Union and First Tech Credit Union posted warnings to their customers not to use them. Google has since taken them off its Android Market site.
If you’ve downloaded one of the apps yourself, you should remove it from your phone. Security software publisher F-Secure posted a list of 39 banks whose names were used in the apps. They include Chase, Deutsche Bank, TD Bank, Wachovia, and Wells Fargo.
It’s not clear what the apps were meant to do, according to F-Secure’s blog. They weren’t developed by the banks, so users couldn’t do online banking with them. F-Secure’s chief research officer Mikko Hyponnen speculates in Computerworld that 09Droid may have only been trying to cash in on the burgeoning Android market by developing and selling what were essentially shortcuts to the banks’ Web sites. But it’s also possible that user info could have been obtained, since the apps opened up the banks’ Web-interface pages.
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—Donna Tapellini
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