So contrary to some FUD reports, Google Play stays relatively malware-free. Which makes long-running apps like this one especially puzzling.

Enter The Videos Mania, which is active for at least about a year, has been downloaded between 100k and half a million times, and has ~7000 likes on Google+. Its developer has 8 other apps like ringtones and wallpapers, all of which require SMS permissions and all are reported as trojans by Lookout, though the Videos one is by far the most popular. The dude didn’t really bother fudging a proper-looking certificate, simply signing his creations as “DN: C=xx”.

This Videos app is marked by 31/54 Virustotal vendors as an SMS-sending trojan, so I’m just curious, doesn’t Google like own VT? Don’t they VT-scan the apps? Or maybe they do it once during app version releases, and if there are no VT alarms at the time, they never re-scan? Not sure, that doesn’t sound like Google. But here we are with this app, and some more of my favorites coming up in future posts.