Spywares are malicious applications that are used by cybercriminals to spy on steal data from devices. Smartphones are a lucrative target as they contain everything from banking details to personal information of a user. Authorities recently took down a spyware found earlier this month that used to carry out such attacks on Android devices of unsuspecting individuals by disguising itself as a harmless application.

Link: Malware that spied on thousands of Android devices taken down. Key points
via http://www.livemint.com