Android Market poses security threats to customers

The newly opened online store of Google, the Android Market could pose serious security threats to its users and open a world of opportunities to the hackers. As per security firm Sophos, the instant download feature of the apps in the Android Market is vulnerable to malicious attacks from hackers.

The problem cited by Vanja Svajcer, Virus Researcher, Sophos in a blog post elaborates that as customers purchase apps, they get downloaded directly to their Android devices. So when this happens without the need of any customer approval for the software installation, it opens the device to anyone who can manage to steal the Google password of the customer.

This would lead to hackers duping you into installing software on your Android device without the need of your permission. The blog also added that as the apps are downloaded, these events happen in the background and customers won't be aware of the same.

As a measure to this, Sophos suggests Google to alter the procedure of instant app download and give customers the choice of approving the downloads. For the customers, the security firm recommends to have strong passwords which cannot be guessed easily.