[Jazmac]

Neowin reports:

Edward Snoden NSA had an app or apps in the google play store whose underlying purpose was to infect other apps with spyware.

"The Intercept has released yet another new document leaked by Edward Snowden detailing even more methods that the NSA planned on using to hack the Android Market in order to deliver spyware using the official Market (now Google Play) to infect targets with spyware, in combination with other active programs. It is not mentioned in the article if the NSA actually used the methods uncovered in practice.
The NSA had planned to use XKEYSCORE, the program designed to watch international backbone traffic, to identify specific users, and other programs in combination to not only take control of app update servers to deliver malicious software, but also to harvest those systems for data about their users. The reasons for this are not specifically mentioned in the actual releases, but the Intercept analysis indicates that they were targeting North Africa, Cuba and Russia in order to react quicker and with more intelligence should another "Arab Spring" style event occur."

How easy is it for apps to do this and can this happen on other platforms like ours?

[gpobernardo]

Unless they find a way to by-pass or override the Sand Boxing Technology implemented in Windows Phones, this won't happen in our platform.