Google Unleashes Kill Switch for Android Malware

Remember those 21 malware-infested applications Google removed from its Market last week? Google now says there were actually 58 malicious apps downloaded to 260,000 Android smartphones, and late Saturday night, Google remotely turned on its kill switch, which is able to remove those errant applications from the phones.
The kill switch is actually software that’s downloaded onto an Android smartphone and installed automatically, removing the apps in question with no user action required.
Stakeholders shown in this pie chart:
- Facebook staff: 30%
- Co-founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg: 24%
- Co-founder Dustin Moskovitz: 6%
- Co-founder Eduardo Saverin: 5%
- Napster’s Sean Parker, Founding President of Facebook: 4%
- Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment firm: ~10%
- Goldman Sachs: ~0.8%
- Goldman Sachs’ clients: ~3%
- Greylock Partners, a venture capital firm: ~1.5%
- Meritech Capital Partners: ~1.5%
- Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder and Clarium Capital president: ~3%
- Elevation Partners (that’s U2′s Bono among others): ~1.5%
- Other investors: ~9.7%