Android malware clean-up exposes reliance on mobile carriers to push out updates

Last week there were many headlines in the security press after it was discovered that malicious apps had been found on the official Android Market.

The good news is that Google used has removed the offending apps which formed the so-called “Droid Dream” attack from the Android Market, so no-one else can be tricked into downloading them from an official source at least.

In addition, Google has revoked permissions from the developer accounts which published the malware, and claims to have contacted law enforcement agencies about the malicious activity.

This weekend, Google announced that it was pushing a clean-up tool to all of the Android smartphones it believed had been affected by the attack.

This is, in effect, Google’s…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.