Security firm Symantec is sounding the alarm about a mobile device threat they call ‘Counterclank,’ a Trojan horse program that they say may have infected as many as five million devices through downloads on the Official Android Market. However, other security researchers aren’t so sure, and wonder whether Counterclank isn’t anything more than an aggressive advertising campaign.
Mobile security researchers at the firm Viaforensics say they have created a malicious mobile application that requires the phone user to grant no permissions during installation, but could give remote attackers the ability to install and execute malicious code on mobile devices running the Android operating system.
Researchers at Symantec discovered that an outdated version of a controversial Android app called ‘Dog Wars’ is infected with a trojan apparently placed by animal rights activists offended by the game’s premise.
Google says it has suspended a number of suspicious applications from the Android Market after researchers at NC State announced they had discovered a new and particularly stealthy piece of spyware, dubbed “Plankton,” lurking in Android applications there.
