Android has always been a mobile center for malware, considering it is the most used operating system worldwide and it has less heavy reviewing processes compared to Apple’s iOS, we can see why it would be targeted by malware attackers.
The newest malware bug is called ‘BadNews’ and is apparently corrupting up to 32 apps on the Google Play store, while this may be moderated, the apps have currently been downloaded over nine million times.
Normally, whenever an app is added to the Google Play store it goes through Google Bouncer, the malware and virus protector that can scan apps and files and code for any malicious content.
BadNews was added into pre-existing apps, which has created this problem. Somehow Google Bouncer did not notice the apps updates contained malware, and let them pass into the store.
Anyone who has downloaded the updates on the 32 apps since has been hit with malicious malware content – once the malware is on, it will send phone and serial numbers from the device back to a server.
This can be very bad if the data is sold to an advertising agency, because users can start getting messages from the ads without signing up and without a “turn off subscription” button.
Blocking the sender may be difficult too, because the server may have sold the numbers to hundreds of different ad agencies. If you are infected with malware, there will be help from Android and other sources available on the web; you can also download AVG and other security apps.
Malware has been a Windows problem for a while now, although since Windows XP third party securities and Windows firewall have become pretty good at getting malware off the system.
Android is suffering the same problem, it is a very popular operating system and security has not been taken into full consideration. Since Android will surpass two billion by 2018, if analysts are correct, it may be a serious problem if Google cannot rethink review processes on Android.
