Possible Bogus Online Banking Applications Written By An Anonymous Developer Known As 09droid

Posted by admin on 14/Jan/2010 in Scams, Security Alert Log | 0 comments

Google’s Android mobile operating system has been in circulation and probably somewhere in the order of a million users already and it is generating more interest and gathering thousands if not tens of thousands of new users every day.

Unfortunately as it becomes more popular it becomes more of a target for unscrupulous developers creating and making available fraudulent applications on the Android Market.

There have purportedly been some bogus online banking applications written by an anonymous developer known as “09Droid”. He (or she) didn’t have just one dodgy application available, but in fact he had decent collection of online banking applications for sale on the Android Market.

09Droid’s applications were being sold but it still isn’t known what exactly they did. To date we haven’t been able to get a copy, so we don’t know either.

Because the applications were not developed or authorized by any of the banks they were available for, they didn’t actually do real online banking from the Android device. As far as we understand it all they did was to open the web interface of the online bank for the user. However in all likelihood could have been used to steal user credentials.

09Droid isn’t available for questioning as he has gone to ground. The good news is that his applications have been removed from the Android Market. Previously available contact information leads you to an empty BlogSpot page.

Many of the affected banks seem to have assumed the worst (probably with good reason) and have gone ahead and issued public warnings to their clients.

An example warning from Bayport Credit Union:

If you have downloaded and are using an application from 09Droid it would be a good idea to remove applications from 09Droid from your Android device until more information is uncovered.

09Droid had the following online banking applications for sale in the Android Marketplace (they have all been removed).

• Abbey Bank
• Alaska USA FCU
• Alliance & Leicester (v. 1.1)
• Bank Atlantic
• Bank of America
• Bank of Queensland
• Barclaycard (v. 1.1)
• Barclays Bank (v. 1.2)
• BB&T
• Chase
• City Bank Texas
• Commerce Bank
• Compass Bank
• Deutsche Bank
• Fifty Third Bank v.1.1
• First Republic Bank v.1.1
• Great Florida Bank
• Grupo Banco Popular
• HSBC US (v. 1.2)
• ING DiBa v.1.1
• Key Bank
• LloydsTSB
• M&I
• Mechanics Bank v.1.1
• MFFCU v.1.1
• Midwest
• Nationwide (v. 1.1)
• NatWest (v. 1.1)
• Navy Federal Credit Union (v. 1.1)
• PNC
• Royal Bank of Canada
• RBS v.1.1
• SunTrust
• TD Bank v.1.1
• US Bank v.1.2
• USAA v.1.1
• Valley Credit Union
• Wachovia Corp (v. 1.2)
• Wells Fargo (v. 1.1)