mobilesecurity.com [London, UK] The Greatest Show on Earth is currently underway in London, which comes hot on the heels of the Euro 2012 Football Championships in Poland and Ukraine. Clearly 2012 is defining itself as the year of sporting excellence.

In recent years we’ve seen the bad guys focusing their attention on the Cricket World Cup in 2011 with fake ticket offers and a variety of scams using the 2010 FIFA World Cup to entice PC users into divulging personal details. It’s therefore no surprise that cybercriminals are attempting to take advantage of sports-loving smartphone users by introducing malicious apps that could be harvesting your personal information for nefarious means.

One tech news site has reported that Russian scammers are pushing what claims to be an official app tied to a major sporting event, but actually delivers an Android Trojan known as Android.Opfake. You can find out more about Android.Opfake from Masaki Suenaga’s article on the Symantec Security Response blog

In short, the malicious app encrypts its own configuration files and contains functionality to collect contact details from the device – immediately raising concerns that it may be designed to steal user information. Symantec’s Security Response team go into greater detail in their white paper, entitled Android.Opfake In-Depth.

Regulars on mobilesecurity.com will know that it’s important to check the number of permissions an app is requesting prior to installation, but equally important is to beware of what these might be attempting to do with your smartphone and personal information. If you’re ever in doubt regarding the validity of an app, look it up on mobilesecurity.com’s App View to discover security and popularity ratings and reassure yourself that your smartphone will remain secure.