It seems that a rogue android application, downloadable from the Android Market, has been doing the rounds, gaining access to people’s internet banking.

It may not have aged too well, but the Android is still pretty cute

According to the security warning from First Tech Credit Union, the app, developed by Droid09, ‘creates a shell of mobile banking apps that tries to gain access to a consumer’s financial information.’ It’s scary stuff, but it seems that users who have downloaded the app could well have had their details harvested, which is dodgy territory indeed.

Of course, none of this seems to apply to anyone in Ireland for the moment, being a very small market indeed to target, but it’s still a very interesting piece of news, given what it says about the Android Market as opposed to Apple’s App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Where Apple’s App Store is notoriously closed, Google’s Android Market is celebrated for its openness, a facet of its design that it seems could now be something of an issue.

The story has highlighted one of the reasons the App Store is so closed in the first place, alongside the reasons why Apple’s iPhone OS runs apps in the way it does.

The big question, for many, will be just whether or not the cost of these occasional, fraudulent or malicious apps is offset by the benefits of careful use of an entirely open platform. It’s a question that is, very likely, far too in-depth to really explore in too much detail in a blog post like this, but we’d be curious to see what those of you working in iPhone or Android development think of the two platforms and just what your experience of each has been.