Mobile Madness

Admit it. It would scarcely break your heart if the legions of slack-jawed smartphone Facebook and FourSquare gawkers were forced to confront their own digital mortality – however briefly – with a few scary exploits made just for them. In 2011, the untethered among us saw several mobile security challenges to be concerned about. High on the mobile hackers’ hit list is Android, the market-leading smartphone OS. Among the highest profile malware was a new variant of Android Trojan called ANDROIDOS_NICKISPY.C that masquerades as a Google+ app and has the ability to intercept record phone calls, but also to answer incoming calls and respond to remote commands sent via SMS. Worse yet, Google was twice forced to delete dozens of apps from its Android Market after the programs were found to be infected with Droid-Dream, malware that captures and transmits phone user data to a remote server for malicious purposes not yet fully known.