Lithuania: Consumers told to throw away Chinese spyware phones

Lithuania’s National Cyber Security Centre is urging consumers to throw away their Chinese spyware phones and avoid buying new ones.

The NCSC tested 5G mobiles from Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi, Huawei, OnePlus, and found cyber and personal data security risks.

“The initial results of the investigation show some cyber and personal data security risks,” said the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense in a tweet.

The report reveals that the Xiaomi phones have built-in censorship tools that restrict keywords in Chinese characters.

Words like “demonstration, free Tibet, Church, etc.,” can be censored at any time. “The list is automatically downloaded from the internet.”

It further states that Xiaomi applications that come preinstalled have an infrastructure that tracks and sends sensitive user actions to third parties.

The applications are able to send the types of files opened, user actions, USB interface status, type of active network interface, etc., to third parties.

According to the report, when Xiaomi devices connect to the Cloud, they send an encrypted SMS message with unknown content to external sources.

“When Xiaomi devices connect to the Cloud, the device sends an encrypted SMS message with unknown content to external sources. The message (including its contents and records) is not displayed on the phone. Thus poses a risk of hidden personal information transfers and user data leakage,” the report reveals.

The report highlighted about 450 words that can be censored in Xiaomi’s system applications.

The capability so far, has never been used in Europe but the report revealed that it could be switched on remotely at any time.

Huawei’s official application store AppGallery “directs users to third party e-stores where some of the applications have been assessed by anti-virus programs as malicious or infected with viruses,” the report adds.

Huawei phones have been exposed to have a backdoor (just like Xiaomi), for future breaches, and Huawei goes as far as leaving loopholes that give 3rd party actors access to conduct cyber-security breaches.

Since its official application store redirects unsuspecting users to 3rd-party stores, their sensitive information along with their device’s usage history and future use can be monitored or stolen.

This way, if caught, Huawei would have an excuse to patch the “vulnerabilities” while the Chinese government and/or agencies would already have the data.

Since Chinese phones come off cheap, they have gained popularity all across the globe.

People tend to buy the cheaper Chinese phones that look like a Samsung or Apple promising “better” camera features, storage, etc., with the tech they stole over the years until were finally caught.

As Huawei was crippled after being exposed for its spying and various breaches, Xiaomi came forward to take a big chunk out of the electronics market.

Xiaomi has also been exposed now, raising concerns that maybe nothing coming out of China can be transparent and independent.

With the rise of 5G’s lightening fast speeds, experts and governments fear the Chinese Communist Party will be able to steal sensitive personal and secret data in a matter of seconds.

Tensions have mounted between Lithuania and China since Taiwan announced its new office in Lithuania would be called the Taiwanese Representative Office.

China reacted and halted trade with Lithuania in a bid to crumble its economy and force it to reverse the decision.

China has long used trade as a tool to pressurize nations in order to stop them from going against China.

It has so far worked in 3rd-World countries in Asia and Africa, failed in Australia and we’re waiting to see what happens in Europe.

Lithuania was also told to remove its ambassador from Beijing while China recalled its own from Vilnius.

As Lithuania stands strong, it has started to expose the Chinese tactics and dangers their electronics devices pose for Europe and the rest of the World.