By Greg Mills
It was only a matter of time; now an Android Trojan has been identified in the wild. The new Trojan has been named “Geinimi.”
The trojan was first found in China and is very likely to spread. The trojan is specific to Android so iPhones and iPads are unaffected. The security firm Lookout posted a Security Alert that can be found at http://blog.mylookout.com/2010/12/geinimi_trojan/ .
The malware was detected in games found in third party Android app stores in China. The worm is sophisticated and gets into Android phones hidden in games downloaded over the Internet. Such games as Monkey Jump2, a baseball game and a sex position app are known to have been infected. The malware takes over the phone and hooks up to any of 10 remove servers. The remote servers can pump the phone for private information and compromise security. Lookout has posted a solution for those affected.
What this does is confirm the fact that the open source notion of Android has weaknesses that are coming home to roost. Clearly, while Apple, as the gatekeeper for the one approved app store has issues, security is much better under that market plan. Apple has always been more secure in all its products than the PC side of the industry. While I don’t always agree with decisions Apple makes, they certainly present a more secure platform.
In time perhaps the details of the new Trojan will come out and we will see what the plan was. Ironically, while the drums are beating about malware that can steal user information, Apple is being sued for allowing iOS apps to do the same thing.