Google's Android malware shoots upto 400 percent
By siliconindia   |   Monday, 16 May 2011, 20:11 IST
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Bangalore: In a baffling incident, Google's Android malware samples shot upto 400 percent since June 2010 to January 2011, as stated in a mobile security report. Reports from the 'Malicious Mobile Threats' suggests that, as Google's Android market gains huge market and popularity, hackers are targeting the platform with malware. This prominent research is a perfect warning for people who are either uneducated or ignorant about the security steps involved while downloading the applications from unknown sources. Offlate, malware writers have made it a practice to pirate Symbian and Windows mobile applications and then to insert malicious code within these applications. The report also revealed that around 17 percent of the Android malware were tracked by SMS Trojans that sent text messages to premium numbers. Application download was the single largest distribution point for malware on the Android platform. Apparently, in 2010, it was tracked that the Android applications downloaded from the official Android market were being illegally distributed through Chinese app-stores and third-party application repositories. According Juniper Networks, the legalized applications were unpacked and the malicious code known as 'Geinimi' was added to 24 different applications. Then the modified applications was presented to the user as a legal application. Geinimi infected applications were then posted to the Chinese websites which distributed software and mobile device applications. After the Geinimi discovery, researchers uncovered two additional families of malicious applications that followed the same basic approach and dissemination method. ADRD and PJApps represented more than 75 different pirated and 'trojanized' applications. In March 2011, the first Android malware application was distributed through Android market on a large scale, which affected about 50,000 users.

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