New Xiaomi Mi 4 LTE Smartphones Are Sold With Spyware, Say Researchers

Xiaomi, China’s largest smartphone maker, has been accused of shipping products riddled with security flaws.

The security risks found in China’s smartphones—particularly those from Xiaomi, the country’s largest smartphone maker—may tie to a deeper problem, according to recent findings from researchers at mobile security company BlueBox.

“Android is very popular in China,” says a BlueBox report, noting almost 90 percent of smartphones in China run on Android.

The problem with China’s Android addiction, it adds, is that “few, if any, of these devices run a Google certified version of Android.”

In other words, while 9 in 10 smartphones in China are running Android, potentially none of them are running certified versions of Android—and that’s where problems start to come up.

If you aren’t running a certified version of Android, BlueBox notes, it means you also can’t use Google services like Google Play Store. The devices would also not be required to pass Google’s approved set of tests, and the devices can be shipped with known vulnerabilities that Google has already patched.

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