Unremovable malware found preinstalled on low-end smartphone sold in the US

Re:Unremovable malware found preinstalled on low-end smartph... by rahuldottech on Friday January 10, 2020 @04:00PM (#22015487)

This is very common for low-end Android phones. I have seen and used many models from different companies (eg, Micromax, Gionee) (mostly Chinese) that remotely install apps or inject ads into the OS (notifications, home screen or lock screen).

They also almost certainly are used to collect personal user data and sell it.

Another bad thing is that these apps often come installed as "system apps", so you can't uninstall or disable them, or change permissions :(

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Re:Unremovable malware found preinstalled on low-end smartph... by tandr on Friday January 10, 2020 @04:22PM (#22015687)

https://www.xda-developers.com/uninstall-carrier-oem-bloatwa...

I have used these instructions in the past to remove things I don't need from Samsung phone.

(There is also xda threads that talking about it as well, pointing what apps could be removed)

I am not 100% sure if "cheap" phones would allow to do this though.

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Re:Unremovable malware found preinstalled on low-end smartph... by jabbany on Friday January 10, 2020 @06:12PM (#22016622)

This. In fact this is quite common in Chinese domestic market phones too. E.g. The Vivo branded (subsidiary of BBK who is also the parent of Oppo and Oneplus) phones are generally domestic market targeted and use FuntouchOS which has arguably adware/spyware built in to the OS level. It's also impossible to flash a custom ROM as it has a locked bootloader.

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Re:Unremovable malware found preinstalled on low-end smartph... by pmlnr on Friday January 10, 2020 @05:27PM (#22016289)

I hope people remember when Kindles were possible to be bought with burned-in ads for cheaper.

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Re:Unremovable malware found preinstalled on low-end smartph... by jzwinck on Friday January 10, 2020 @06:12PM (#22016626)

I too hope people remember that, because it was the case one minute ago. You save $20 or so by having ads on your Kindle when it is sleeping. The ads are not burned in, they are delivered via WiFi the same as other Kindle content. I don't see the problem with it.

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Re:Unremovable malware found preinstalled on low-end smartph... by wmeredith on Saturday January 11, 2020 @11:05PM (#22024397)

You can also go into the settings, pay the extra $20, and turn them off.

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Re:Unremovable malware found preinstalled on low-end smartph... by Jeff_Brown on Friday January 10, 2020 @05:57PM (#22016533)

In which case the buyer knew what they were getting into, yes?

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