Google banned dozens of apps from the Google Play store after discovering code in the apps that was secretly harvesting user data.
Smart Kit 360Audiosdroid Audio Studio DAWWhat were the apps harvesting?
The report goes on to catalog the data these apps were able to harvest. The Measurement Systems SDK gathered precise location data, email addresses, phone numbers, and details about connected devices nearby. It could also collect data stored in the phone’s clipboard, which might include passwords when using copy-and-paste. The SDK can scan parts of a phone’s file system as well, including files stored in the WhatsApp download folder.
“The thought that this data collector could have built a database mapping someone’s actual email and phone number to their precise GPS location history is particularly frightening, as such a database could be used to run a service to look up a person’s location history just by knowing their phone number or email, and could be used to target journalists, dissidents, or political rivals,” Reardon wrotereports that Google removed the apps from its app store on March 25th.
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