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Data Theft Alert: Android Users In India At Risk, Warn Cyber Security Experts
Android smartphones at risk. Photo credit: INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP/GettyImages
Indian cyber security experts have raised the alarm bells after reports emerged suggesting that security firm Kryptowire identified a "backdoor" spyware in Android smartphones in the US which collected sensitive personal data and transmitted it to servers in China.
The devices actively transmitted user and device information including text messages, contact lists, call history with full telephone numbers, and unique device identifiers to third-party servers in China without user-consent, Kryptowire claimed.
Shanghai Adups Technology, the Chinese company behind the spyware – or firmware – however admitted that it planted them in some Android phones "by mistake" but the "text messages, contacts or phone logs" were not shared with anyone else.
One of India's top cyber law experts, Pavan Duggal, explained:
Android is a very fertile platform with a large number of contaminants and infections. Hundreds of thousands of infections have been discovered on the Android platform in the last few years.
IT risk assessment and digital security services firm, Lucideus vice-president for training, Rahul Tyagi, had this to say:
Duggal claims:
Though under the 2008 amendments to the Information Technology Act, 2000, all mobile phones, including smartphones, have been covered within the ambit of the Indian cyber law, the law still does not comprehensively deal with relevant issues in the mobile ecosystem.
The absence of India as a signatory to any international treaty on cybercrime further complicates the intrinsic ability of the immense law and legal frameworks to provide effective remedies against any such contravention.
According to Internet and Mobile Association of India consultant and cyber security expert Rakshit Tandon:
Duggal stressed that keeping new-age security needs in mind, steps must be taken to make Indian cyberlaw more effective and redressal mechanisms must be built in for the users who are part of the digital and mobile ecosystem.
With inputs from IANS.
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