Trojan mimics Android clean-up tool

It sure looks like Google can’t catch a break. After the whole incident with malware (DroidDream) spreading on the Android Market last week, they released an update to help clean up affected Android phones. The update was supposed to give Google the ability to remotely delete the malware from users’ devices – it was Google’s way of cleaning up the mess. However it appears that some programmers have developed a Trojan version of the clean up tool and released it on third party Android marketplaces. This caused users who were infected with DroidDream to download yet another Trojan onto their handsets if they didn’t download the Google update from the official Android Market. This new Trojan is called Bgserv-A and is similar to DroidDream – it steals the IMEI and phone number from infected handsets and uploads the info to a remote hacker-controlled server. Infection is likely to lead to high data usage as well as compromised privacy. Google hasn’t announced their next step to counter the problem, but at the moment, the Android reputation doesn’t look too good. Maybe Google needs to rethink their “open to anyone” approach for the Android Market.