14 DAY TRIAL // Search engine-based company Google has reportedly pulled a series of banking applications from the Android Market, following reports that they might have been used to steal users’ confidential banking information. All of the applications were submitted by the same anonymous developer, 09Droid, and were pulled of the storefront as soon as the security concerns were raised.
According to F-Secure, the said developer had a wide range of applications available for purchase via the Android Market, and it is still uncertain what the software solutions were actually doing. It seems that neither of the apps was approved by banks, yet the only thing they did was to bring the user to a bank's website. However, it should also be noted that the official site of the developer is only a blog of some sorts. At the same time, F-Secure further mentions that the banking applications might not be the only solutions this developer submitted to the portal.
The banking apps that F-Secure says have been pulled from the Android Market include: Abbey Bank, Alaska USA FCU, Alliance & Leicester, Bank Atlantic, Bank of America, Bank of Queensland, Barclaycard, Barclays Bank, BB&T, Chase, City Bank Texas, Commerce Bank, Compass Bank, Deutsche Bank, Fifty Third Bank, First Republic Bank, Great Florida Bank, Grupo Banco Popular, HSBC US, ING DiBa, Key Bank, LloydsTSB, M&I, Mechanics Bank, MFFCU, Midwest, Nationwide, NatWest, Navy Federal Credit Union, PNC, Royal Bank of Canada, RBS, SunTrust, TD Bank, US Bank, USAA, Valley Credit Union, Wachovia Corp, and Wells Fargo.
For the time being, it seems that there are no exact details on what the apps were designed for. “These applications were being sold, but it's still unclear what exactly they did. We haven't been able to secure a copy for ourselves yet, so we don't know either. Since the applications were not developed or authorized by the banks themselves, they could not do real online banking from the Android device,” F-Secure notes. Hopefully, additional details on the matter will emerge in the near future, so stick around to learn the news.