Android App Sends Personal Data to China

Ed Sutherland ()

Android App Sends Personal Data to China

Is Your Personal Data Vacationing in China?

Is your voice mail password now the property of some Chinese hacker? Millions of Android users who downloaded an innocuous wallpaper app from Google’s Android Market may be nodding their heads ‘yes.’ Turns out, that wallpaper app was sending voice mail passwords and many other bits of personal data to someone in Shenzhen, China, according to one report.

The exploit was downloaded “anywhere from 1.1 million to 4.6 million times,” reports Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat. The application grabs your browsing history, text messages, phone’s SIM card number and subscriber ID and sends it all to the www.imnet.us website, according to the report.

The data theft was first discovered by mobile security firm Lookout and announced at the Black Hat conference of security experts in Las Vegas. Unlike the recent security hole found in the AT&T website that could have allowed hackers access to 144 thousand iPad owner email addresses, the Android exploit was more extensive, involved more serious data theft and most importantly – it wasn’t a hypothetical threat.

Nearly half (43 percent) of the apps offered by Android Marketplace include third-party instructions, compared to 23 percent of iPhone apps, Lookout said. Another difference between the two app sources: iOS applications require Apple approval before appearing in the App Store. By comparison, Google’s Market only warns users during the installation process.

Additionally, applications distributed through the App Store carry digital certificates from Apple, reducing the likelihood malicious hackers could anonymously distribute data-stealing code.

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[AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, VentureBeat]

8 comments »

About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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  • Bobba

    looks like there’s a new market for some Norton products.

  • Alfred

    And this is just the first one to be discovered.

    Will there be more? (probably)

    Are there more in the wild right now? (probably)

  • steven

    Whats really a shame is that Android is the underdog although HTC and Verizon take pop shots at Apple any possible chance they get. Being the underdog, the attention this gets will be small to nil.

    I wonder what would REALLY happen if this go’s extreme public as the antenna issue with iPhone 4. And…would the uneducated public ( and blog sites ) cut Google to ribbons as what happened to Apple? This kind of crap is what really gets me. Buy an iPhone and have a very slim-to none chance of having an antenna issue or buy an android and having me, my family, my credit cards, all my person text’s, the maker of my kitchen sink be known to some hack job in China? Possibly marketing a product with an American face attached to it….my own kids?? Mine? My wifes?

    Get on it CBS….Wheres the story on this? Or is it…”that’s OK little baby Google, its alright, try harder next time. In the mean time, suck on this binky”?

  • Dagansinferno

    Interesting, but not shocking. Morton is already in the Mobile Security market btw.
    Lookout is a great (free app) on Android Marketplace. If you don’t have it or
    some other security/anti-virus on your android phone you’re asking for trouble.
    Mobile viruses and malware is going to skyrocket over the next few years. Just saying…

  • 4phun

    The totalitarian regime in communist China has a new fondness for Linux. Red Flag Linux has been adopted by China as the nation’s OS and is now widely taught to the nation’s huge population in their technical schools. The other communist nation North Korea has released a fascinating Red Star Linux as a possible cyber weapon. It looks a lot like the Microsoft OS.

    China has also taken Android Linux and changed it to suit their system. One of many changes stripped out Google search killing that Google hoped for profit center. It is only a matter of time before even the youngest of Chinese Geeks will be able to pawn the familiar Android Linux code making life very dangerous for those in the west with gadgets based on Android.

    Why does Linux have such a strong appeal to the communists?

    Did you notice what what popular western Linux site recently published?

    http://www.linux.com

    “If a totalitarian regime uses Linux, does that mean Linux is an enemy of the state? That’s the mind-bending question of the day following some politically charged Linuxy news that emerged over the past few weeks. North Korea, it appears, has developed its own Linux-based operating system. With a strong similarity to the Windows user interface, Red Star even comes with a Readme file including quotes from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il about how important it is for the republic “to have its own Linux-based operating system compatible with Korean traditions.”

    So, should you still be surprised that Android phones have been exploited by a Chinese hacker?

  • JVC

    Not too surprisingly, It is hard to find the same news on Google News. I think the news should be listed in “Mobile Industry” section in Google News, but nowhere to be found.

  • DJM

    I don’t suppose it occured to anybody to, oh, I don’t know, publish the NAME of this app so it could be deleted???

  • http://www.freedroidapp.net/ free droid app

    droid app are really great machines to handle different kinds of communication ways.