Black Hat news: Android app sends data to China [telecom]

" A questionable Android mobile wallpaper app that collects your " personal data and sends it to a mysterious site in China, has " been downloaded millions of times, according to data unearthed " by mobile security firm Lookout. " " That means that apps that seem good but are really stealing " your personal information are a big risk at a time when mobile " apps are exploding on smartphones, said John Hering, chief " executive, and Kevin MaHaffey, chief technology officer at " Lookout, in their talk at the Black Hat security conference " in Las Vegas today.

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Other references cited:

***** Moderator's Note *****

Has this been confirmed, or is it just a report?

Bill Horne Moderator

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. The site they cited, imnet.us, is definitely in China, not the USA, per a whois.

The two authors had a scheduled presentation July 28 at BlackHat in Las Vegas NV from 1645 to 1800 per:

and

The authors' bios are here:

and

and more info about the authors' AppGenome project is here:

with the summary:

" [...] " The App Genome Project has already scanned nearly 300,000 " applications, and fully mapped nearly 100,000. Early findings " show differences in the sensitive data that is typically " accessed by Android and iPhone applications and a proliferation " of third party code in applications across both platforms. " " Results found that applications on Android are generally less " likely than applications on iPhone to be capable of accessing " a person?s contact list or retrieving their location, with " 29% of free applications on Android having the ability to " access a user?s location, compared with 33% of free " applications on iPhone. Additionally, nearly twice as many " free applications have the capability to access people?s " contact data on iPhone (14%) as compared to Android (8%). : [...]

I don't know if BlackHat publishes or makes available additional material after the conference concludes today (July 29, 2010).