However, all these varying statistics and countermeasures don't mean that there isn't bad stuff out there.įor example, in the spring of 2011, Lookout identified a Trojan app called GGTracker that was distributed via malicious websites that mirrored the Android Market.

And if something does slip by Bouncer, Google can remove the Market listings for malware apps and even remotely remove them from devices. In addition, Google recently announced an internal malware scanner called Bouncer that scans apps submitted to the Android Market. (Of course, Google is only accounting for the official Android Market, while the security vendors also scan third-party app markets and websites from around the world.) Meanwhile, Google has reported a 40% decrease in the number of potentially malicious downloads from the Android Market from the first to the second half of 2011. Other security vendors disagreed Symantec later backtracked and said that the code it thought was malware was really from an aggressive ad network. For example, at the end of January, Symantec announced that 13 apps in the Android Market contained malware. And according to Lookout, the likelihood of Americans encountering Android malware went from 1% in the beginning of 2011 to 4% by year's end.īut the vendors don't always agree. Meanwhile, according to NQ Mobile, cases of malware increased from 4,781 cases in 2009 to 10,369 cases in 2010 and 22,600 cases in 2011. For instance, a report from Trend Micro (PDF) includes a chart that shows a large spike in the amount of total Android malware in 2011.

One thing they all agree on is that the amount of malware targeting Android has been growing.

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