Google removed dozens of apps from its Android store after it was found to contain spyware. Revealed on Wednesday April 6 in an investigation by the wall street journal, the hacked apps collected the personal data of its users. This information was then resold on behalf of a subcontractor of the American intelligence services.
A Panamanian company at the heart of controversy
IT security company AppCensus, at the origin of the discovery malware, shared the information to Alphabet, Google’s parent company, in wall street journal and to federal privacy regulators.
The United States secretly fought a Russian botnet affecting the whole world
The code was written by a Panamanian company called Measurement Systems S. de RL The company defines itself as a specialist in the collection of statistics. It approaches app creators by promising $100 to $10,000 a month – or even more – depending on the number of regular users on their platforms.
Measurement System was paying developers around the world to implement their code into their application. ” It is common today for developers to add SDKs, which are not verified or understood correctly, within their application “Says Serge Egelman, co-founder of AppCensus, to the Wall Street Journal.
Among the affected applications, prayer services addressed to Muslims
The applications affected by the malware retrieved the precise location, personal identifiers such as telephone numbers and email addresses of users. In some cases, they could harvest items copied to the phone’s clipboard, the content of certain messaging systems and access devices connected to the same Wi-Fi network as the one hacked.
Among the services affected, weather applications, QR code readers or prayer applications for Muslims such as Al Moazin and Qibla Compass. These are used by more than 10 million people worldwide. ” Apps hosting Measurement System software have been removed from the Play Store as of March 25 “, reassures Scott Westover, spokesperson for Google.
Massive data collection for US intelligence services
According to the survey of wall street journal, Measurement System is a subsidiary of Vostrom, a subcontractor of several American security services. Following a request for an interview, an American company that possibly acted as an intermediary between the two companies was quickly dissolved.
The Panama-based group sought to collect data from users living in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia. An uncommon practice, usually it is the information of people residing in North America and Western Europe that are of interest to data resellers. These can be resold at a much higher price.
Some apps have already changed their code to remove the Measurement System SDK and are back on the Android store.