A Warning About Cheap Chinese Android Devices

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PReed2309

Apprentice Lv2️⃣
Member for 5 years
Hi there,

I thought I would share my experiences with buying cheap Chinese Android devices to serve as a warning and precaution

In February this year I purchased a phone in the UK from a fairly reputable company called Argos. The phone was only £50.00 but as I was recently made redundant, I had little choice. The phone is branded Archos Access 40 but sold in the UK as Alba 4. Archos is a French company who outsource their phone production to Chinese manufacturers.

No sooner did I switch on my phone I commenced to download all the apps I needed such as My Vodafone which is my network provider. I had a pop up appear once I opened up the app to say although my phone is rooted I could still use their services. I knew I hadn't rooted it as I only bought it just an hour prior to this! Other strange occurences started to happen such as my banking app is incompatible with my phone although it more than met the specs required.

Two weeks after this, I noticed a new app suddenly appear on my phone which when checked matched one in the play store which was from an American energy company called SRP M-POWER. I opened up the APK of this app and it turned out to be something very different to the one in the play store. It was running constantly in the background, installing its own plugins to my SD card and using data to send signals in China and Singapore. I would uninstall it and it kept returning within hours. It even had a company called Dongnao appear in list of accounts but not the one in settings, accounts but only appearing when you click on factory reset and Google warning you what accounts you will lose data on if you commenced with factory reset.

Suffice to say I was dealing with a cyber security officer at the real SRP M-POWER who had seen this numerous times. I ended up contacting Archos after me further investigating this as I found out this app was not been installed by play store or package installer but from a system app which would create the APK after firstly rooting the phone using an encrypted SU binary, install a file called libchecker.so and change code in various web browsers to keep a record of everything I did on the internet and send all the data to China.

I spent many weeks having running battles with Archos, sending screenshots of various activities happening on my phone as they flat out refused to believe me until I showed clear evidence where they could deny it no more. Basically my phone was infected by malware called Triada which was inserted in the ROM at manufacturing level.

This is the price for purchasing cheap Chinese devices. Sadly there is always a more expensive price to pay later.

On a more positive note, Archos have admitted full responsibility and are sending me a better more upgraded phone for helping them identify the source of this malware.

Please let my mistakes be a lesson to you all - consider that purchasing a phone at a price that seems too good to be true, will inevitably turn out true later on.

Thanks for reading anyway.
 

Hans Bloodsmith

Hardcore Lv9️⃣
Member for 6 years
Curses those Asians!.....wait, I'm an Asian too.....
Joke aside thanks for sharing with us! Yesssh, a case like that are also pretty common in my country, especially with how many cheap phone that sold here and the fact that peoples here are much prefer to buy cheaper things.
 

PReed2309

Apprentice Lv2️⃣
Member for 5 years
Curses those Asians!.....wait, I'm an Asian too.....
Joke aside thanks for sharing with us! Yesssh, a case like that are also pretty common in my country, especially with how many cheap phone that sold here and the fact that peoples here are much prefer to buy cheaper things.
Hey Hans Bloodsmith! May I say you have a great username!

Not all Chinese devices are bad. OnePlus and Xiaomi are particularly impressive. In all honesty, when Western companies outsource manufacturing to China and get these phones for next to nothing, you can't really blame the Chinese for wanting to leave a little extra in the ROM!

I shouldn't really say this but when I researched this malware, I have to take my hat off to the sheer ingenuity of it. This malware does nothing for a few weeks then slowly but surely takes over your phone until it is too late to do anything about it. The fact these types of malware are put in the ROM at manufacturing level, makes these Chinese very clever indeed!
 

Hans Bloodsmith

Hardcore Lv9️⃣
Member for 6 years
Hey Hans Bloodsmith! May I say you have a great username!

Not all Chinese devices are bad. OnePlus and Xiaomi are particularly impressive. In all honesty, when Western companies outsource manufacturing to China and get these phones for next to nothing, you can't really blame the Chinese for wanting to leave a little extra in the ROM!

I shouldn't really say this but when I researched this malware, I have to take my hat off to the sheer ingenuity of it. This malware does nothing for a few weeks then slowly but surely takes over your phone until it is too late to do anything about it. The fact these types of malware are put in the ROM at manufacturing level, makes these Chinese very clever indeed!
Thanks! Your name are cool too! Let me guess, 2309 must be stand for something, hmm, your birthday maybe? 23th of September.

Yep, Xiaomi phone are pretty decent, i knew cause my phone are one

It's like a Virus.... slowly taking over your phone....and when you realize what happens it's already too late.....hmm, somehow this reminds me of a horrors movies plot. With the Chinese being the mad scientist or maybe secret evil organization!......nah, they're pretty nice.
 

pleaseforgiveme

SB Cash Farmer
Member for 5 years
Thanks for the warning my good man but i think its a lil bit too late for me since i experience this same thing i bought a cheap price mobile phone for the price of only
5000php the brand name is Huawei Y6 2018 version last year and i got easily regret it i bought it on the local mall the first 4 days of using that phone is okay then its suddenly downloading automatically very suspicious application such as HDGames which is contains ads that is not appropriate for younger audience parental guidance is advice, all my money in my bank i've lost almost 58k on my money in there i used my mobile phone for online transaction that i did not know got some security issues i am sure china planning to steal information for every person using therbrand. i would never gonna buy huawei products again those scams feeding my money to them stealing they are all s*""'ks for stealing me moneh well atleast someone manage to share there experience.
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i remembered it again if i ever see a f''"": huawei brand i will destroy the whole stand and burn all of there products into the ground.
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of course the bank wont make my money back because according to there useless terms they are not responsible for there costumers using the mobile device for online transaction everytime i remembered it it will make my blood boil. i'm not bad mouthing huawei i just cant believed i was been fooled by a cheap mobile device and ransacked big amount of money to me its harsh man they rather evict me in my house or just lost on some game but i can't afford to lose money life in my country is not that good tax are rising poverty increasing economy is in downfall crime increase politicians don't care rich will become richer poor become poorer every last drop of money is important.
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Plus the gasoline price is incrwasing every month trump's fault.
 
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PReed2309

Apprentice Lv2️⃣
Member for 5 years
@pleaseforgiveme I am sorry to hear that and believe me I understand completely.

I sent many emails to Archos about my device, including screenshots of this malware app sending data to China. I even sent them my build.prop file because on there was the same command that Google play protect reported on in 2016 about this Triada malware. Believe me it was very difficult for them to take me seriously. In the end I threatened to go on Reddit and show everyone there the clear evidence I had and expose Archos to the public. Within hours I had emails from Archos saying they will send me an upgraded phone and are sending it in the post from France.

My advice - don't give up. If we paying customers don't stand up to this they will keep getting away with it.

If you need help finding evidence on your phone drop me a private message and I will show you where to look.
 

silverfox05

In Love Lv4️⃣
Member for 6 years
thank you very much for posting this, really. Ever since a couple of weeks back, I've been seeing files that I am not familiar with, as well as folders respawning despite being erased.

fortunately, I have only been using my PayMaya (which does not have much funds in it, luckily).

I feel violated. O.O
 

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