Google Flips Kill Switch in Response to Last Week's Android Malware

Last week, news was that Google pulled 21 apps from the Android Market for being malware. These apps rooted the user's device and made the device an open door for more corrupt codes. Over the course of the week, what were just 21 apps became more than 50 apps and on Saturday evening, Google responded with a remote app removal initiative. They removed the apps, but didn't issue any public comment, except that it had initiated the "remote application removal feature", so questions of what will happen to the 50,000 apps that have already been downloaded will go unanswered.

Google's killing the germs

Google also said that it will be pushing an Android Market security update to affected devices to prevent hackers from accessing more information via the exploit. Those users will get an update on their phone and an email saying, "Android Market Security Tool March 2011" has been installed. According to Google, the malware only affected phones running Android 2.2.1 and lower. It's still the majority of Android devices and can be attributed to fragmentation of the Android Market. Google said that they are taking security steps to prevent this occurrence from happening again but they haven't been specific about what steps they're exactly going to take.