When purchasing a smartphone, one expects that it will come preinstalled with certain software and features promised and advertised by its manufacturer. If purchasing from a carrier, we guess one can expect certain carrier bloatware that will come preinstalled as well. However we can be pretty sure that when buying a new smartphone, it will not come with malware preinstalled.
Well it seems that some customers must have been in for a surprise when their newly bought phones came with malware already installed. This is according to G Data, a German cyber security company who discovered that malware had come installed on a Chinese phone called the Star N9500.
The device is made in China and has been designed to look like the Samsung Galaxy S4. According to G Data, they have received several complaints from buyers of the phone and after running a scan, they discovered that the device came with a Trojan-horse malware called Usupay.D. The company also found out that the malware would send information and data to an unspecified server in China, although it seems that there have been no reports of attacks just yet.
G Data has attempted to reach out to the phone’s manufacturer but so far have been unsuccessful, which has us wondering if the company knew about the malware, or if they had unknowingly installed it when they were making the phone. As it stands the phone is being sold on Amazon UK, so if you were thinking about a cheap Android smartphone, you might want to look elsewhere for now.