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.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: iDon’t have security. You want to bank on-to-go? Use a real iPhone and App Store. Painfully naive Google is in way, way over its head.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “dd” for the heads up.]
Nice!
Malware on their phones should make all those Apple/iPhone haters feel all warm and cozy.
You can say that again MDN
LoL, so how’s that totally open app development going for you?
I ain’t even heard of jailbroke apps for the iPhone doing this.
My new tagline concerning The Googles.
Google is evil, but it’s a friendly evil.
Just makes you want to run out and buy a Google phone. I think that I will stick with my iPhone.
First, Google has no idea how to do customer support. Now, security in their own app store is crap. Google may want to label this as an experiment. It will look a lot better when they slowly back out of this business.
Google googled Google!
Just like Windows, with out the cost savings.
And this is why Apple has such a pain-in-the-ass app approval process.
“Google Nexus One beta Superphone”
Well, according to the “security through obscurity” myth, since Android phones have such a small market share, they should be the most secure, right?
Coming Soon: Norton SystemWorks for Android!
Happiness is a warm evil.
“Coming Soon: Norton SystemWorks for Android!”
Since MS is pulling the rug out from under their “security” partners, Norton & McAffee et. al. will need something to put bread on the table. Guess that something is going to be Droid.
Perhaps Steve was right about the whole taking down the West-coast network statement; maybe a malicious app could do that. This brings-up two good points:
1. Like the zero Mac viruses issue, the iPhone has much larger market-share, but no malicious official/approved apps. I wonder how many malicious apps Apple has blocked in the approval process.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
2. The iPhone *is* taking down networks all over the place, just not in a malicious way.
Verizon: There’s a hack for that.
just my $0.02
There WAS a way to maliciously take over a jailbroken phone. Which completes the argument for a total lock-down, as is done by Apple.
Ultimate techno geeks may feel free to jailbreak, or go Android (after all, they have no issue running Ubuntu on desktop). For all other normal people (and the rest of us techno geeks who don’t have the time to be extra vigilant with our hardware/software), Apple’s lock-down is quite welcome, if that’s what it takes to not have to worry about clicking on a link or downloading an app.
And situations like these are why Apple has installed a remote emergency app removal mechanism in the iPhone OS.
Apple hasn’t needed to yank already deployed apps thus far, but if a bad one should slip through after all, they can kill it remotely even after it’s been downloaded by users.
Which – as long as it’s used judiciously – is A Good Thing.
This sort of thing scares a lot of people away from using such apps on any phone, including the iPhone.
First of all, I hated that Planet of the Apps piece, total crap, it felt like it was paid by competition to smear Apple.
They were talking about Apple’s approval process like it was random and “I am the God of Apps” process without giving any information on why Apple may reject app and why it is taking so long to approve.
They didn’t even tell about advantages of this approval process.
Well, here it is, now make part 2 of PotA and include that Google fiasco.
@ Predrag–
You make it sound as if jailbreaking, in itself, is a security risk.
However, that’s not quite the case.
SSH is a program whose sole purpose is to allow you to browse your phone’s file structure from a computer.
The take-over you mention requires the user to first install SSH, and second, leave the default password in place.
So the take-over really is just allowing something to happen that you intentionally put in place, while being naive at the same time.
just more fuel to this particular fire…
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001852.html
iPhone is a very close platform, I can’t have malwares, virus, keyloggers, etc in my iphone 🙁 I
Google phone will create a new markets for Norton, AVG, and the like very soon. And the “super phone” users will spend part of their life time and money to “supposely” protect themselves from malware.
From fire to a hot frying pan.
THAT’S what they meant by “an open platform”!
wait, that’s not OPEN!!!!!!! If I write an app that steals bank info and people are dumb enough to want to use it, then they should be able to use it — they paid for the phone, they should be able to ANYTHING they want, including installing my bank info stealing app. Anything less makes Google as bad as Apple!
</sarcasm>
GET YOUR STINKING PAWS OFF ME YOU DAMN DIRT APP!