Employees at the Russian anti-virus company Doctor Web have come to believe that roughly 45 smartphone models have seen viruses installed in them at the manufacturing stage. This could have an adverse effect on thousands of smartphone users around the globe, the firm pointed out.
"According to smartphone holders, the anti-virus program has found malware on their smartphones. We’ve looked into the problem and arrived at a conclusion, that the software was part of the overall system and could have landed there only during the production phase, being specially built into the system," Doctor Web CEO Boris Sharov told Sputnik.
He went on to say that the company had revealed that the affected phones were based on the Android operating system. Among them are Chinese-manufactured Leagoo, Zopo Speed 7 Plus, UHANS A101, Doogee, Umi London, Tesla SP6.2, Haier T51, CherryMobile Flare and other relatively low-cost models.
"We have identified a comprehensive list of servers where this malicious software sent data from the smartphones… All the smartphones were of Chinese origin, hundreds of thousands of these smartphones’ users across the world can become victims of the virus," Sharov said.
Earlier there were reports of so-called Triada malware seriously infecting dozens of Android models, predominantly the Chinese-manufactured ones. It was said to impact a range of smartphone applications and perform a plethora of malicious operations with users unaware of it.
READ MORE: Happiest Teens Use Phones for Less Than an Hour a Day
Moscow-based Dr.Web is a Russian anti-malware and security company which has been operating since 1992 and has devised its same-name flagship antivirus suite for both corporate and individual use.
