On the 17th August this year, a number of researchers including from Google, Akamai, CloudFlare, Flashpoint and RiskIQ uncovered a botnet called WireX which has been found to be contributing towards DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. The interesting element of this discovery comes from the botnet being mainly made up of Android devices that are running specific malicious applications. Google has reported that they have removed 300 applications ranging from video players to so-called security tools. More worryingly, the fact these applications made it onto the official Play store as opposed to a third-party store which is the typical spot from malicious applications.
There is a suggestion that there are over 70,000 infected mobile phones spread over 100 countries, which is probably a sign of things to come in terms of mobile phone security.