'Shake to charge', similar crapps foul up Amazon Android store

Security researchers have sniffed out dodgy apps floating around the Amazon App Store for Android-powered devices.

Roel Schouwenberg, a Kaspersky Lab Expert, ran into the "malware" while looking for benchmarking apps for his Kindle Fire HD on the online shop.

The "Internet Accelerator Speed Up" program, for example, is supposedly designed to boost internet connection speeds however it fails to "do much of anything", according to Schouwenberg. The app is free but does show adverts from a mobile marketing network.

The independent developer behind the software has also released another app intriguingly called Shake Battery Charger.

The appearance of suspicious apps on the Amazon store reflects the popularity of the online bazaar. Schouwenberg has filed a complaint with Amazon about the potentially dodgy software.

"It should come as no surprise that there are malicious apps in the Amazon App Store," Schouwenberg explains in a blog post. "Amazon.com is incredibly popular and it's a very trivial step to also upload an app into their store."

"We detect these pieces of malware as Hoax-AndroidOS-FakeBapp-A and have been in contact with Amazon.com about this. The apps were previously available in Google Play as well, but had been removed at an earlier time," he added. ®