Mobile security firm Lookout are reporting that a very popular set of Android wallpaper apps has been scraping user data, and sending it to a company in China.
The app is called “Jackeey Wallpaper”, and was downloaded between 1.1-4.6 million times. The app collected the device’s phone number, subscriber identifier, and voicemail number fields, which were then sent to the Chinese owned site www.imnet.us
There’s currently some debate about how much data this app actually had access to, and if it was enough to do anything malicious.
However, it’s definitely harvesting data of some sort, and sending it to a non-trusted source. If you have any of the apps created by this company, it’s probably worth getting rid of them.
[via Venture Beat]
Where do you make this “non-trusted source” conclusion, besides this racist “Red China” bit?
Now someone’s reputation is ruined. Kudos for the abuse of power you media types. Whatever happened to fact check?
Same thing back when the Aurora attack happened. Some blog said “Chinese fingerprint” and everyone jumped on it. Turned out the 4-bit nibble CRC code came from 25 year old Novell programming guide.
And there’s no effort to undo the damage that’s done. We basically can say anything about “Red Commie China” with impunity.