Be Aware of Pre-installed Trojan Being Sold on Amazon

Researchers from the Cheetah Mobile Security Lab have found a dangerous Trojan, dubbed Cloudsota, pre-installed on certain Android tablets. Tablets infected with this Trojan are still on the shelves of Amazon, ready to be shipped to customers around the world.

Origin: Complaints from victims

This Trojan has existed for quite some time and victims have been consistently asking for help at Android forums like XDA, TechKnow and others. A few complaints from customers can be found on Amazon as well.

Evil: Malicious activities of the Cloudsota

The Cheetah Mobile Security Lab has detected that Cloudsota can install adware or malware on the devices and uninstall anti-virus applications silently. Furthermore, we found that the Trojan replaces the boot animation and wallpapers on some devices with advertisements. Cloudsota also changes the browser’s homepage and redirects search results to unsecured ad pages.

Impact: More than 153 affected countries

According to our rough estimation, at least 17,233 infected tablets have been delivered to customers hands. Over 150 countries are affected by this Trojan, with Mexico, USA and Turkey suffering the most.

Over 30 tablet brands have been pre-loaded with this Trojan, among which the most severely affected are the no-brand tablets with Allwinner chips. Over 4000 such tablets have been sold to customers across the world.

While most people have no idea about Cloudsota’s potential risks, it is a ticking time bomb threatening your privacy and property.

Read More Here <=> http://www.cmcm.com/blog/en/security/2015-11-11/843.html