Last week Google decided to make an early start on Spring cleaning their Android operating system by removing 21 malware apps from its app store.
Google recently has been concerned at the worrying lack of people actually buying apps from it's app store - sadly their app store is more like a flee market - hence why they are trying to clean it up.
Well, according to Google and its well informed blog - it was actually 58 malicious apps and they were downloaded to 260,000 thousand smartphones.
Well not to be out done by those malicious apps, Google used their big red button, which we imagine to be in a lovely pine wooden box, and killed the apps. That's right Google have the power to remove an app straight from your phone without you even noticing - even if you like the malicious content.
"We are pushing an Android Market security update to all affected devices that undoes the exploits to prevent the attacker(s) from accessing any more information from affected devices. If your device has been affected, you will receive an email from android-market-support@google.com over the next 72 hours. You will also receive a notification on your device that "Android Market Security Tool March 2011" has been installed. You may also receive notification(s) on your device that an application has been removed. You are not required to take any action from there; the update will automatically undo the exploit. Within 24 hours of the exploit being undone, you will receive a second email."
Apparently Google have had this switch since 2008 - and for us if these apps were malicious why has it taken them so long to use it?
Google downplayed the significance of the apps, as they would, and assured that the apps have no worrying affects to its user private data - which something we suppose.
"For affected devices, we believe that the only information the attacker(s) were able to gather was device-specific (IMEI/IMSI, unique codes which are used to identify mobile devices, and the version of Android running on your device). But given the nature of the exploits, the attacker(s) could access other data."
The kill switch isn't a complete fix, as we've discussed before, Android is real hodge-podge of different versions and according to Tech church many Android devices are still vulnerable, this is because some of their users are still using older versions that still have the security exploits.
What can you do to help - well if you have been ignoring an update for you phone, for whatever reason, then please update it. For one Google will be happy because they need to get their software house in order and two the new version is way better and more secure – so go on join Google and do some Spring cleaning.
What are you thoughts on Google removing apps from you phone without your permission? Are you worried about how safe the Android app store is? Would you consider not buying apps if it is thought to be unsafe.