If you’re waiting for a wake-up call when it comes to Android malware, this might be it. Security software vendor Symantec has published a report claiming that anywhere from one to five million Android phones and tablets may be infected with the Android.Counterclank spyware. The infections spread from thirteen identified apps across three developers, some of which have already been removed from the Android Market, presumably by Google. Most were blatant copies of popular games or vaguely naughty apps.
The Android.Counterclank malware is technically a trojan: it can receive remote commands and send back personal information. It’s a serious risk for anyone who has it installed on their hardware. Exact download numbers aren’t known, but looking briefly at some of the estimated downloads in the web version of the Android Market, Symantec could very well be correct. This is the largest documented security breach for Android so far, and it doesn’t help that the apps are still available for download.
If you’ve downloaded any of the apps listed below, remove them immediately.You should also change any passwords you have stored on your Android device and check any vital accounts for illicit access.
- Counter Elite Force
- Counter Strike Ground Force
- CounterStrike Hit Enemy
- Heart Live Wallpaper
- Hit Counter Terrorist
- Stripper Touch girl
- Balloon Game
- Deal & Be Millionaire
- Wild Man
- Pretty women lingerie puzzle
- Sexy Girls Photo Game
- Sexy Girls Puzzle
- Sexy Women Puzzle
Calling this a huge problem is putting things mildly. Some of these apps have been available for months. As great a tool as the relatively open Android Market is, the continual discovery of spyware and malware in widely available apps is a black eye on the Market and Android as a whole. We await Google’s reesponse to Symantec’s findings with interest.
It’s true that there’s an app for just about anything, and now apartment hunting is going to be a whole lot easier. Popular apartment searching website – Apartments.com – has launched its new application in the Android Market. For an application like this to really shine, it has to have some key features.
It needs to show apartments available near an exact location, and index listings with as many options as possible. Well, it seems they’ve done a great job in every area. Using GPS you can search for nearby apartments, and listings can be indexed by location, rice, number of bedrooms, bathrooms, amenities, and more. Not to mention, photos and videos of apartments are also viewable from within the app!
When you find an apartment that interests you, just favorite it within the app to easily compare it to others later. The iPhone app has already been available for some time, but Android makes up a huge chunk of the smartphone market, so its addition will really help many of us out. Let us know if it ends up helping you out!
[via MarketWatch]
Call of Duty fanatics have been hard at “work” racking up kills in Modern Warfare 3 for a couple of months now, and Activision’s promised Android tie-in is now available in the Android Market. The Call of Duty ELITE app ties into the Activision service of the same name, allowing players to remotely access statistics and player loadouts. It’s not a stand-alone game – for that, you’d be better off trying the Modern Combat series of “inspired” Android shooters.
Players can use the ELITE app to check out their multiplayer statistics, including the ever-popular kill-to-death ratio. Perhaps more useful is the loadout editor: using the app, you can change what weapons and gear your virtual solider uses for the next time you enter the online arena. So, if you overhear your friend talking about how good he’s getting with his fancy new shotgun, it might be a good idea to swap out yours for a mid-range rifle before you face each other on the opposite side of a map.
You’ll need to subscribe to the Call of Duty: ELITE service before using the app, and have players in a t least a few recent multiplayer battles. At $49.99 a year for console players (the PC version isn’t out yet) it’s an expensive proposition, so the service and the app is only for the most dedicated of cowadooty Call of Duty players. Initial reviews in the Android Market are not positive, citing a poor UI and buggy experience. Here’s hoping that these can be improved for Activision’s customers.
[via Joystiq]
Get the latest of one of the most popular sports video game franchise ever, Madden NFL '12, for your Android device for just 99 cents from EA Sports. The game was built for Android 2.1 or higher, and has optimized versions for both Tablets and the Xperia Play with it's built-in control pad. You can choose to play as any of the 32 NFL teams, and different game-play modes allow for complete micro-management of every bit of action on the field.
It's Madden NFL 12, done right, for a buck. Grab it using the handy link after the break.
Here at Android Community we love 3rd party keyboards and Swiftkey X is right at the top of our list. We’ve constantly recommended this as one of the best apps for Android phones and tablets. Today they’ve pushed their latest update to improve upon the recently released v2.2 and they’ve added tons of improvements and bug fixes — Especially for the Droid Bionic.
Updating version 2.2 that features improved learning techniques, support for over 35 languages, improved multitouch support for faster and more accurate typing and more. The update today should address many of the force close issues the latest release suffered from, improve support for voice input on the DROID Bionic. memory handling has been improved and is more efficient as well.
While they didn’t announce any new features or important updates small things like memory handling should help speed up the typing experience and make things much more fluid for daily usage. XKDPI icons and key-press popup fixes were also included. As usual you can head to the Android Market on your device and via the link today to get the latest and greatest from Swiftkey X. See our awesome reviews and hands-on of Swiftkey below.
If there’s anyone who doubted Android’s growing popularity during these last months, the recent news we got fromDistimo should put things in order. According to the Dutch-based research company, Google’s Android Market has reached 400,000 available apps a few days ago and should hit 100,000 active contributing developers soon enough.
The numbers, while unofficial and not from Google, are pretty huge if we look at them on their own. But if you take into consideration their evolution during 2011, things get even more impressive. The Android Market has doubled in size since last April, mostly due to the increase of free applications. While the percentage of free content in April 2011 was of 60% from the total number of available apps, by the end of last year the rate had increased to 68 percent, meaning that more than two thirds of all Android Market content today is free of charge.
In Distimo’s report, we get a very interesting comparative look at the Android Market and Apple’s App Store as well, which confirms what we already knew for a while. Both Google and Apple are growing in popularity and the mobile market is practically monopolized by the two.
Apple’s App Store hit 400,000 available apps in June 2011, which is half a year earlier than the Android Market, but on the other hand the App Store’s progress has not been as impressive as Android Market’s increase during last year.
The Android Market only needed eight months to double in size from 200,000 available apps to 400K, while the App Store for iPhone needed no less than 15 months to pass from one milestone to the other. Considering this data and improvement rate, it’s fair to predict that before the end of 2012, Google’s Android Market might surpass its competitor in terms of number of available apps.
As far as contributing developers go, the Android Market is very close of hitting the 100,000 milestone, with each active developer publishing 4.1 applications on average. While again we are faced with pretty impressive numbers, it has to be said that a year ago every active developer published nearly five apps on average, which means that some of the contributors have gotten lazy.
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