Oh dear. Android Marketplace apps with viruses

[TimberWolf]

No iTunes just acts like a virus and deletes people music collections when they least expect it, or 'synching' as they call it

For a short while I thought I was stuck with some films on my iPod. I can delete almost everything off it using the iPod itself, but when it came to some films, there didn't appear to be a way of doing it. iTunes left them alone too, until I discovered the manual setting. Although I had to go through a few iterations between auto and manual because iTunes crashed a few times and I'd already deleted them off my PC manually.

[amcdonald]

This would have never happened under the Apples.

No iTunes just acts like a virus and deletes people music collections when they least expect it, or 'synching' as they call it

[DimPrawn]

This would have never happened under the Apples.

[amcdonald]

It isn't a virus at all. It's malware that steals personal information and also installs further malware, including rootkits, but it doesn't try to spread itself as a virus would.

Quite poke around at the code in Eclipse and it's not hidden at all, anyone could work out its dodgy

[NickFitz]

It isn't a virus at all. It's malware that steals personal information and also installs further malware, including rootkits, but it doesn't try to spread itself as a virus would.

[Sysman]

More than 50 applications available via the official Android Marketplace have been found to contain a virus.

Analysis suggests that the booby-trapped apps may have been downloaded up to 200,000 times.

The malicious apps were copies of existing applications, such as games, that had been repackaged to include the virus code.

All the apps found to contain the malicious code have now been removed from the Android Marketplace.

BBC