Gionee, a China manufacturer that recently tried to revive its smartphone market share earlier this year was found guilty by a Chinese court on Saturday for infecting more than 20 million units of devices with malware. As reported by GSMArena, a Trojan Horse was used to “get money from unsolicited ads and other malicious activities without the user’s knowledge.”
The smartphone company under Shenzhen Zhipu Technology Co. Ltd apparently implanted a trojan horse through a software update on a feature called Story Lock Screen. Dubbed as the “Dark Horse Program” by the report, infected devices started as early as December 2018, until October 2019. During that period, the company gained around $4.2 million from 21.75 million smartphone units.
Four people were charged with the illegal practice, sentencing Xu Li, Zhu Ying, Jia Zhengqiang, and Pan Qi from 3-3.5 years in prison and a fine of CNY 200,000 (~Php1,472,500) each.
The post further includes that this malicious activity is apparently common with “cheap” Chinese smartphones, mentioning Infinix and Tecno, which were found guilty of technically the same act.
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bulbulito_bayagbag says:
A warning to buyers of cheap android phones, may kapalit yan kaya mura. Malware can be installed to extract your information etc. Gionee should be ashamed. As well as other brands who are doing this shameless act (Tecno and Infinix).