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Free Android apps scrape personal data, send it to China
MoreFree Android apps scrape personal data, send it to China
Millions have downloaded 'suspicious' wallpaper apps, says mobile security firm
By Gregg Keizer
July 30, 2010 01:36 PM ET
Computerworld - 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@1sters!" -- include code that accesses users' personal data, said Kevin Mahaffey, chief technology officer and a co-founder of Lookout.