Yeah, They're Angry All Right

Google recently removed at least 10 applications from the Android Market, all of which contained malicious code disguised as add-ons to one of the most popular apps of all time.

Each of the removed apps posed as a cheat or an add-on to Angry Birds, the much-lauded mobile application created by Finnish game development studio Rovio.

A number of the apps in question contained a spyware program called Plankton, which connects to a remote server and uploads phone information like the IMEI number, browser bookmarks and browsing history.

For the longest time, we have taken apps for granted.  When we became aware of the dangers that could be embedded into third-party code, we were assured that those on the legitimate Android market could be trusted.  That's not quite as accurate as we were once led to believe.


Phone security can't be neglected.  As we store more personal correspondence and information on those devices, we have to up the bar for security and public education.  We can't afford to have infected phones logging into financial and personal sites.