"Careful with those Apps, Eugene"
Well, its official, the Android App market is getting malicious. Reddit was the first to report the suspicious apps, and since than many news sources have jumped on the story. Apparently, many popular and legitimate applications were being repackaged with malicious content, and reposted to the app market. Over 21 popular apps were repackaged with malware, that included exploits such as 'RageAgainstTheCage' which gains root access to Android devices. Over 50 malicious apps were found in total with much help to Lookout. Here is a full list of all the malicious apps found. All of the apps have been removed, and the three user accounts associated with loading them to the app market have been banned. Unfortunately, the apps had roughly "50k-200k downloads combined in 4 days." Whats the lesson here? Always read the user comments when downloading apps. Also, use common sense, if the app looks fishy, don't install it!!