Android may be the fasting growing mobile platform but its open source concept, which helps drive its success, could also prove to be its Achilles heel.
Security firm F-secure has predicted that 2011 will see cyber scammers target Android more than any other mobile platform due to the lack of approval processes for applications to be hosted on the Android Market.
Approval processes are in place for Apple’s App Store and Nokia’s Ovi Store (in the form of its Signed by Symbian program).
In 2010, F-secure detected Android applications that posed as games while spying on users, applications posed as banking applications with no official connection to banks and applications that attempted to steal users’ banking credentials.
Jailbroken iPhones could also be exploited for malicious purposes, F-secure said. The only malware F-secure detected in iPhones only infected devices which had been jailbroken.
F-secure warned that worm-infected iPhones could destroy or steal data, track users’ locations and spam contacts without users’ knowledge.
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