The Hacker News - Cybersecurity News and Analysis: Chinese Devices

Chinese smartphone manufacturers have been criticized many times for suspected backdoors in its products, the popular Chinese smartphone brands, Xiaomi and Star N9500 smartphones are the top examples. Now, the China's third-largest mobile and world's sixth-largest phone manufacturer 'Coolpad' , has joined the list. Millions of Android smartphones sold by Chinese smartphone maker Coolpad Group Ltd. may contain an extensive "backdoor" from its manufacturer that is being able to track users, push unwanted pop-up advertisements and install unauthorized apps onto users' phones without their knowledge, alleged a U.S. security firm. OVER 10 MILLION USERS AT RISK Researchers from Silicon Valley online security firm Palo Alto Networks discovered the backdoor, dubbed " CoolReaper ," pre-installed on two dozens of Coolpad Android handset models, including high-end devices, sold exclusively in China and Taiwan. The backdoor can let attacke

If you own a Sony smartphone either the Android 4.4.2 or 4.4.4 KitKat firmware then inadvertently you may be transmitting your data back to the servers in China, even if you haven't installed any application. Quite surprising but it's true. I know many of you haven't expected such practices from a Japanese company, but reports popping up at several forums suggest that some new Sony Xperia handsets seem to contain the Baidu spyware . MYSTERIOUS BAIDU SPYWARE About a month ago, a group of community users of Sony smartphone detected the presence of a strange folder, named " Baidu ", mysteriously appeared from among those present in various versions of Android for these handsets. The creepy part is that the folder is created automatically without the owners permission and there is no way of deleting it. Even if someone tries to remove it, it instantly reappears as well as unticking the folder from device administrator equally seems to do nothing, neither does starting t

In an intent to move one step forward from others, China is planning to launch a facial recognition payment application with near-perfect accuracy that enables users to authorize their online transactions just by showing a picture of themselves. Chinese researchers from the Chongqing-based research institute have developed a facial recognition system that can pick faces from a crowd with 99.8 percent accuracy from 91 angles. CHINA FACE-RECOGNITION PAYMENT SYSTEM TO LAUNCH IN 2015 Academic at the Chongqing Institute of Green has set up the world's biggest Asian face database displaying more than 50 million Chinese faces. The database was compiled with help from the University of Illinois and the National University of Singapore. The face-recognition payment system is not completely developed at the moment and will come into application by the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) in 2015. This system will let users to interlink their bank accounts or credit cards with

The United States division of Samsung has been charged with deceiving the US government into believing that several of its products met the necessary US government policies, resulting in the US government buying unauthorised Chinese-made electronics . The South Korean electronics giant has agreed to pay the Government $2.3 million in fines to settle the charges of violating trade agreements, the Justice Department announced Tuesday. Under federal contracting rules, Government agencies are only required to purchase products made in the United States or in countries that have a trade agreement with the United States. Federal agencies purchased products from Samsung through authorised resellers, believing they were manufactured in South Korea or Mexico, comply with government procurement rules — namely the US trade agreement act. SAMSUNG LIED TO U.S GOVERNMENT Despite complying with the terms of the contract, Samsung was found to have breached the US government bet