Android Trojans downloaded by millions, still on Android Market

Symantec last week identified 13 new malicious applications on the Android Market, saying the combined download figures—reportedly up to 5 million—make it "the highest distribution of any malware identified so far this year." The applications use Android.Counterclank, which Symantec says is "a bot-like threat that can receive commands to carry out certain actions, as well as steal information from the device."
We found six of the apps from three publishers still appearing on the Android market Monday morning. Symantec calls Android.Counterclank a Trojan, and Google's Android Market policies specifically ban Trojans and other types of malware. On the other hand, Symantec classifies Android.Counterclank as having "very low" risk, and the app publishers barely seem interested in hiding the programs' capabilities.
One such app (link is probably NSFW) identified by Symantec as a Trojan contains "write browser's history and bookmarks" under its list of permissions. This is coupled with a generic warning from Google that "Malicious applications can use this to erase or modify your Browser's data." Another app on Symantec's list is "Deal or BE Millionaire," and one user review from more than two weeks ago warns, "beware malware... every time you run this game, a 'search' icon gets added randomly to one of your screens. I keep deleting the icon, but it always reappears. If you tap the icon you get a page that looks suspiciously like the Google search page." Symantec says the presence of the search icon on the home screen is one sign of Android.Counterclank infection.
Symantec says the apps can "copy bookmarks on the device, copy opt out details, copy push notifications, copy shortcuts, identify the last executed command, modify the browser's home page, steal build information," and retrieve device data such as the Android ID, MAC address and SIM serial number. We've asked Google if the company plans to remove all of these apps from the Market and will provide an update as we get new information.
UPDATE: As one commenter points out, Lookout Mobile Security has a different take on the matter, that Android.Counterclank is not malware but "an aggressive form of an ad network." While these apps contain software that is annoying and that average users do not want, Lookout notes that it isn't designed to commit identity theft or financial fraud. We've also learned that several of the apps were pulled from the Android market because they violated Android Market policies unrelated to malware, such as trademark violations or artificially increasing ratings.

Google kills Menu button, brings action bar on the fore

As Ice Cream Sandwich begins rolling to more devices, you will not find the Menu button on Android devices anymore. Honeycomb 3.0 had reduced users’ reliance on physical buttons and now Google has decided to kill the Menu button and get its ‘action bar’ on the forefront. Now, action bar isn’t something new and was there, even before Honeycomb.

 The Android developers’ blog states, “You might worry that it’s too much work to begin using the action bar, because you need to support versions of Android older than Honeycomb. However, it’s quite simple for most apps because you can continue to support the Menu button on pre-Honeycomb devices, but also provide the action bar on newer devices with only a few lines of code changes.” In the blog post, Google also tells its Android developers to start using the action bar, which is a dedicated space to the application and actions that users can perform. The app is recognized and gives it users several actions to choose from.

It tells developers that apps should stop relying on the hardware Menu button, and they should also stop thinking about activities using a menu button. The activities should provide buttons for important user actions directly in the action bar (or elsewhere on screen). Those that can’t fit in the action bar will end up in the action overflow. Basically, those actions, which don’t need to be on the screen can overflow off the screen. The action overflow is a three dotted icon found on the extreme right. Users can reveal the overflow and other options by touching an overflow button that appears alongside the on-screen action buttons.

So, even if an app supports older Android versions, it won’t display the Menu button for versions Honeycomb 3.0 and beyond. Those with apps developed for Android 2.3 and lower, and when running on the Honeycomb tablet of Google Nexus will see that the system adds the action overflow button besides the system navigation.

 

Google dominates Indian Android app space

Leading Android apps

It’s no surprise that Google’s Android platform has turned out to be the most budding platform. It’s also the case in the slightly more price sensitive Indian market. Apple’s iOS-based iPhones and iPads are still pretty expensive for mainstream consumption in the Indian market, but it’s not the case with Android. Nielsen, a research company has released a blog post that states that Google also happens to dominate the mobile app terrain in India. The report states that Indian smartphone users tend to spend roughly 40 percent of their time using data apps. Out of all the apps on the market space, the majority of 25 percent are made by Google.
 The most used app from Google’s portfolio surprisingly is the Android Market followed by Gmail and Gtalk and then, the rest. The most popular app on the other hand isn’t a Google one, though. Facebook, the popular social networking service launched their app on Android and iOS devices quite sometime back and on Android, it’s the most popular app around today. Nimbuzz also figures in this list and it’s the second most popular social networking app around, used primarily for chat. In terms of other categories of apps, GPS, video, e-mail and search apps dominate the terrain.

Amount of time spent

 In terms of time spent, Google’s apps dominate in the Search, GPS, e-mail and streaming video sections. Other third party app developer apps are preferred as far as chat and social networking apps are concerned. For example, 99 percent of social networking apps used aren’t Google-based. It doesn’t appear as if Google+’s mobile app has taken off in India. The same goes with chat, where only 7 percent of the time is spent on Google-based chat applications. The Nielsen report also details age groups and the use of the popular Google apps, which you can find on the Nielsen report blog post. The report doesn’t really cover other apps across other platforms, so it’s hard to conclude, if these are the most popular apps in the Indian market today. However, considering how well Android is doing these days, it might be assumed that it’s the

case.