Background:

"We believe they all had the same malware," said Kevin Mahaffey, CTO at Lookout Mobile Security, which has taken to calling it the . The apps were released under the Google-registered developer names "Kingmall2010," "we20090202," and "Myournet," which Lookout Mobile suspects are all the same person or group. At least one of the malicious apps is based on stolen software that was trojanized and submitted to Google.

The 50 or so include English, Japanese and Chinese language infected apps that were published under the names "Magic Strobe Light" to "Advanced File Manager" to "Magic Hypnotic Spiral" to "Screaming Sexy Japanese Girls." All were free. Earlier reports said Google Android marketplace had taken , but it's now believed they have all been removed.

This episode of large numbers of malicious Google apps is believed to have been originally discovered by a user of the popular news aggregation site Reddit who spotted the pirated apps, and another online source, Android Police, also took a close look and flagged it. Mahaffey calls it a "community response" to the malicious Google apps, which he notes has been one of the main forces working as a first responder to trouble.

Lookout Mobile and Symantec, which each have Android security software, are among security vendors that have blacklisted the malicious Google apps pinpointed this week, so anyone using their software that downloaded the DroidDream-injected apps would recognize and eliminate it.