A 50,000 surge in Android Market applications in the last year has taken the total number of apps to over 200,000 but has come at a cost – the huge growth has brought with greater attention from cyber criminals with a sharp rise in malicious apps designed to steal user data appearing.
Since the middle of last year there has been a 400% increase in the detection rate of malware on the Google Android platfom, leading to several Android antivirus programs being released onto the market. Some have blamed the open source nature of the Android platform for these figures compared to Apple’s heavily moderated iTunes App store.
These figures were released during a recent mobile security study by Juniper Networks which concluded that the Android Market was the largest distribution network of malware on mobile devices. One particular Android app called DroidDream has been blamed for infecting up to 50,000 Android users before Google could remove the rouge app.
Security firms AVG and Webroot have recently released free and paid versions of their mobile security programs, with software specifically for the Android operating system.