Baidu apps with 6 million US downloads found to be leaking sensitive user data

Security researchers from Palo Alto Networks have discovered that apps produced by Chinese firm Baidu have been leaking sensitive data about users. Baidu Search Box and Baidu Maps -- which have been downloaded more than six millions times in the US alone -- were found to be sending details such as MAC addresses, phone models, IMSI and IMEI to a server in China. The researchers warned Google about the activity of the Android apps which were then removed from the Play Store. The Baidu apps were gathering data from phones without user consent, and the nature of the data that… [Continue Reading]