NEWS: Free Android apps scrape personal data, send it to China
in [Wireless Internet]
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From: John Navas on 31 Jul 2010 10:35 Between one and four million users of Android phones have downloaded wallpaper apps that swipe personal data from the phone and transmit it to a Chinese-owned server, a mobile security firm said today. According to San Francisco-based Lookout, a large number of free wallpaper apps in the Android Market scrape the phone number; the user-specific subscriber identifier, also know as the IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity); the phone's SIM card's serial number; and the currently-entered voicemail number from the phone. That information is then transmitted to a server that Internet records show is registered to a resident of Shenzhen, a city in China's Guangdong province, just north of Hong Kong. Over 80 wallpaper apps created by a pair of developers -- "callmejack" and "IceskYsl(a)1sters!" -- include code that accesses users' personal data, said Kevin Mahaffey, chief technology officer and a co-founder of Lookout. MORE: <http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9179894/Free_Android_apps_scrape_personal_data_send_it_to_China> |