But the uniquely open design of Google’s smartphone operating system, which lets anyone easily distribute software for Android phones, is especially vulnerable. And the Android phone market is a large and tempting target for criminal hackers. According to market research firm comScore Inc., Android is the most popular smartphone platform in the United States, accounting for 36 percent of the nation’s 74.6 million smartphones.
Google recently dropped 10 smartphone apps from its online Android Market store, after Xuxian Jiang, an assistant professor of computer science at North Carolina State University, found the programs were infected with Plankton, a program that secretly collects information about a user’s Web-browsing habits. It was the latest of several incidents in which Google was forced to purge infected apps from the Android Market. In March, the company deleted about 50 apps that contained DroidDream, a program that could seize control of an infected phone and steal information stored on it. And in May, Google had to delete another two dozen apps infected with a modified version of DroidDream.
The second-most-popular smartphone, Apple Inc.’s iPhone, is Google’s chief rival in the smartphone market, and is much harder to attack. The main reason: Apple’s tighter control over iPhone software.
Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said his company runs “a curated app store,’’ meaning that apps — games, media players, and other programs made to perform specialized functions on smartphones — are reviewed by the company’s employees before being offered to customers. Apps that don’t meet the company’s standards are barred from the store, sharply reducing the risk that malware will slip through.
IPhone infections are rare and are generally caused by unauthorized software obtained outside of Apple’s online app store. Such software can be installed by overriding the iPhone’s security settings. This process, known as “jailbreaking,’’ is popular with technology enthusiasts but rarely used by the general public.
