Computers & Hardware > Android & other hand held devices
Android phone preloaded with malware?
sevenlayermuddle:
Interesting story, reported not only by the Beeb but many other sources too...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27908105
I am not familiar with the German security firm 'Gdata' who it would seem broke the story, and so I personally will remain open-minded as to whether it is true or twaddle.
https://www.gdata-software.com/newsroom/news/article/android-smartphone-shipped-with-spyware.html
Still, I am prepared to believe it could be true, which is scary enough. :o
roseway:
Scary indeed. :(
kitz:
Just to clarify that the affected phone is the Star N9500.
Judging by all the reports it does indeed appear to be true that the Star N9500 - which is a cheap chinese clone of the Samsung Galaxy S4 - comes shipped with the trojan Android.Trojan.Uupay.D It would appear that you cant even get rid of the trojan it as its pre-installed by the manufacturer as part of the firmware.
To me that sounds like a deliberate infection by someone quite big & highup in the chain and I agree that its scary the amount of information its supposed to be sending back to a chinese server. :o
I wonder if it will ever materialise just whom is maintaining the server. Is it deliberate by Star, who wrote their firmware? Where they extremely lapse to allow someone to install it in their firmware.
... or even bear in mind the Star N9500 costs about £120. Having just seen a photo of it, it does indeed look remarkably like the S4. Ive no idea how much they cost now, but when I got my s4mini last year, the S4's were retailing at £500. Samsumg cant be too pleased that a chinese company has ripped off one of their top phones and selling it for a fraction of the cost.
Interesting though is the news from a Kasperksy Lab Expert reporting in March this year, that other Chinese phones have been found to be pre-installed with Trojan.AndroidOS.Uupay.a. No comment on what the chinese gov is like when it comes to what they do and monitor when it comes to the internet.
Theres a kaspersky article here which shows just what the trojan is capable of doing. Now that is scary :o
renluop:
And Cameron wants Chinese involvement in nuclear and HS2 projects. ::)
sevenlayermuddle:
Yes it is cheap, but... From the G Data link posted earlier...
--- Quote ---The security experts at G DATA think that the low price of the mobile device is made possible by the subsequent selling of data records stolen from the smartphone owner.
--- End quote ---
:'(
I see it now seems to have vanished from Amazon too, though it was still there late last night.
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