This Chinese Company Sold Thousands of Phones with Inbuilt Virus to 5 African Countries ‘Without their Knowledge’

Software that eats up mobile data and registers people for unwanted subscriptions has been found pre-installed on thousands of low-cost Chinese smartphones in Africa, more than two years after it was first detected.

The anti-fraud firm, Upstream, found the malicious code on 53,000 Tecno handsets, sold in Ethiopia, Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana and South Africa. Company manufacturer, Transsion said that the malware was installed in the supply chain without their knowledge.

The malware called Triada, through a malicious code known as xHelper, submits fraudulent requests without the users’ knowledge. If the request is successful, it consumes pre-paid airtime, the only way to pay for digital services in many developing countries.

The malware was found in the Tecno W2 smartphone.

Upstream’s head, Geoffrey Cleaves said that the manufacturer was taking advantage of the “most vulnerable.”

“The fact that the malware arrives pre-installed on handsets that are bought in their millions by typically low-income households tells you everything you need to know about what the industry is currently up against,” Cleaves added.

The anti-fraud platform recorded 19.2 million suspicious transactions since March 2019 from over 200,000 unique devices.

Transsion Holdings is one of China’s leading phone manufacturers and in Africa; it is the top-selling mobile manufacturer.

However, in a statement, Tecno mobile said the problem was old and solved the mobile security issue globally, which it issued a fix in March 2018.

Consumers currently having trouble should download the fix through their phones or contact after-sales support. The company blamed an unidentified vendor in their supply chain process.

At the beginning of the year, a security firm, Malwarebytes warned that similar pre-installed apps were found on another Chinese android phone, which was being offered to low-income families in the USA through government schemes.

Google, which developed the Android operating system, said that it is aware of the issue and that they blamed third-party vendors used by manufacturers to install features such as face unlock.