Tech News

Xiaomi, OnePlus and Realme would be spying on their users

The pre-installed applications would have access to permissions to take personal information from users.

researchers of the University of Edinburgh and of the Trinity College of Ireland carried out a study in which they found that mobile phones Xiaomi, OnePlus and Realme they have pre-installed apps that are taking information from users without them realizing it.

For the investigation they took three references, one of each brand: the Redmi Note 11, the OnePlus 9R and the Realme Q3 Pro. Three of the best sellers by these companies, located in China.

What they found is that the phones come from the factory with a series of platforms that have permissions to access people’s data, running in the background and taking that material to the company and the developers of the apps.

It may interest you: Almost 8 million mobile phone operator changes were made in Colombia during 2022

Cell phones with spy apps

The analysts found that the three phones investigated have more than 30 third-party platforms installed out of the box, including Baidu Input and Sogou Inputin the case of Xiaomi, and Baidu Map and Amap for OnePlus and Realme phones.

This type of application is known as bloatware, which fills the device with services from the moment the user buys it and sometimes takes up more space than necessary.

The pre-installed applications would have access to permissions to take personal information from users.
The pre-installed applications would have access to permissions to take personal information from users.

But the real problem is in the permissions they have, since they run in the background and collect information from the user without the user realizing it.

It may interest you: The best way to enter Android applications with your finger print

“We found that these packets transmit to many third-party domains sensitive privacy information related to the user’s device (persistent identifiers), geolocation (GPS coordinates, network-related identifiers), user profile (phone number, application usage, etc.) ) and social relationships (eg, call history), without consent or even notification,” the researchers said.

In addition to this, in the case of Xiaomi They detected that the Redmi smartphone sends information to an external tracking URL whenever pre-installed apps such as camera, messages, notes, voice recorder, and settings are launched.

The information collected was sent practically at all times, even when the cell phone was connected to a different mobile network, when it had no signal or did not have a SIM card inserted.

It may interest you: Apple’s “pay later” feature will include monthly and long-term charges

The pre-installed applications would have access to permissions to take personal information from users.
The pre-installed applications would have access to permissions to take personal information from users.

Of course, the researchers clarified that this situation occurs mainly in China. In the rest of the world, the number of pre-installed apps that represent a risk is between three and four times less, because they require between 8 and 10 fewer permissions.

Therefore, the best option to protect yourself from this is to review the permissions of the pre-installed applications and delete all those that will not be used, something that will also help to optimize the phone’s storage space.

Old cell phone risks

Both phones that have the operating system of Android or of iOS they have the possibility to update their software to have access to better features, applications and functions. However, with each new major update in which the system is changed, cell phones become less and less compatible with the demands of the applications to a point where they cannot be updated anymore.

This limitation not only prevents them from downloading new versions of their operating systems, but they will also be unable to access minor software updates, even though most of them include improvements to security bugs that can be found in past versions. This is the main reason why these users could not adequately face the risks of computer attacks.

It is at this time that any device could be affected by a cyber attack, hacking, remote access, malware infiltration through malicious applications, among other possible security risks that may directly affect cell phones, if not it may involve the data stored within, including banking information, access codes to other platforms, personal information, etc.

Related Articles

Back to top button