Rogue Android Smartphone App Created
With all the whining about Apple’s review policy in the AppStore, its a little comforting to read about fraudulent applications getting into the Android Marketplace:
12.22.09 Rogue Android Smartphone app created
We recently learned that a fraudster developed a rogue Android Smartphone app. It creates a shell of mobile banking apps that tries to gain access to a consumer’s financial information.Droid09 launched this phishing attack from the Android Marketplace and it’s since been removed. It’s called phishing because scammers go fishing for information about you or your financial account that may be used for identity theft.
Please note that this attack didn’t target First Tech accounts. Accessing your First Tech account from your phone’s web browser is completely secure.
If you did download the Droid09 app, please remove it from your phone and take it to your mobile provider to ensure it’s completely removed.
As a reminder, we don’t currently have an app for the Android phone.
It’s interesting that Google doesn’t seem to have much to say about the incident. If I were an Android user, I would want to hear from Google about the issue to know that they are doing all that they can to prevent future occurrences of similar incidents.
I know I have been one of the many voices complaining about the review process in the AppStore. However, I am well aware that the main purpose of that review process is to prevent just such occurrences as the one that Android is dealing with now.
With more than 100,000 apps in the AppStore, we have yet to see any malicious applications appear. Sure, there have been some apps that AT&T didn’t like (tethering and video streaming) and some that were just rude (the Baby Shaker app comes to mind), but overall, the applications we have had were very safe to use.
Its a shame that Apple was proven correct by this incident. I would have liked to see an open marketplace for mobile applications. However, now that mobile apps are taking off in popularity, they are going to be attracting all kinds of unsavory developers and open marketplaces are going to be very dangerous places to be purchasing/downloading mobile applications.
Dave M.
There was also the Storm8 phone number fiasco. Apple’s jackboot stance didn’t prevent any of Storm8′s apps from getting into the app store. Apple only reacted after-the-fact, which is exactly what Google will have to do as well. Advantage? Google, because they’re not sinking resources into policing their user base. Those resources are better used making a better mobile OS.
For a real eye-opener as to what an iPhone app can do, check out SpyPhone. It’s an open source project released so people will become aware. Here’s an article about it.
http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/new-spyphone-iphone-app-can-harvest-personal-data-120409
What Apple needs to do stop trying to be everyone’s mother. Instead, provide us with an intelligent firewall so we’ll *know* what our phones are doing. Let the user decide what’s acceptable. The jailbreak community has an awesome firewall app.