41 Android apps downloaded will be very compromised

about 185 million Android users could endanger their personal data, according to German researchers who analyzed 13,500 applications now available on Google Play.

Researchers at the University of Marburg and Leibniz discovered that 41 Android apps, the most popular would be vulnerable to attack SSL certificates, may eventually reveal users' personal information. Armed with a fake WiFi hot spot and the right software, the researchers were able to steal personal data such as emails or identifiers bank accounts and insert their own malware app for controlling and data it collected and shared. The researchers did not reveal the names of the 41 applications in question.

Since these apps are especially vulnerable when used with a non-secure connection, the authors of the study have continued their research with a survey of 745 people, to see if they knew the risks of using public Internet connections (ie non-secure or non-protected) as a public WiFi hotspot. The study reveals that although most respondents said computer savvy, 47.5% of participants who did not work in the computer were not able to tell the difference between a secure connection or not.