Plankton Outbreak in Android™ Market

Angry Birds Add-on Apps laden with Malware

“Plankton” a new type of malware has infected the Android market. This malware has the potential of accessing the remote server so as to download files which can help to exploit vulnerabilities in the operating system (OS) of the phone. It also collects the data (bookmarks and bookmark history) from the browser of the phone.

Due to this, Google has been forced to remove 10 more apps from the Android Market. All of these apps contained malicious code camouflaged as add-ons to Angry Birds, one of the most popular apps of all time.

Whenever a user downloaded any of these add-ons, Plankton connected itself to the remote server and uploaded phone information like the IMEI number, browsing history, and browser bookmarks.

Prior to this identification, Google had removed 26 applications just two weeks earlier. Similarly, in March, Google had removed 50 apps from the Android Market.

These malicious applications were discovered by Xuxian Jiang, an assistant professor of computer science at North Carolina State University, which he reported to Google on June 5.

Today, people access most of their personal details on their Smartphones. These range from business servers, social networking, to their bank details. In such a situation, the presence of malware like Planktons, which come into the phone OS as add-ons is a cause of real concern.