Buying a new mobile phone comes with viruses! Two Chinese brands were named and feared that they would not be deleted.

Some niche Chinese brand Android phones have been found to contain malware, so be careful when buying them. (Photo/Reuters)

Be careful when buying a cheap mobile phone. You might save your wallet, but end up buying a problematic mobile phone with a built-in "virus"! The security company Bitdefender recently revealed that a piece of malware called "Midnight Mimosa" is actually hidden directly in the systems of some cheap Android phones, especially Chinese niche brands, white brands and copycat phones, which are more worthy of attention.

According to a Bitdefender research report, Midnight Mimosa is different from malware that is usually infected by downloading unknown apps. It is directly embedded into the phone's firmware, which means that even if the app is not downloaded indiscriminately, the purchased phone may have already been "infected."

Please read on...

Two Chinese mobile phone brands have been named. Beware of white brands and copycats

The affected devices discovered so far are mainly concentrated in less well-known niche Android mobile phone brands, including Doogee and Cubot from China. In addition, be careful of white-brand mobile phones and counterfeit mobile phones, especially counterfeits that deliberately imitate Apple and Samsung flagship phones.

Fortunately, there is currently no evidence that this wave of attacks has affected mainstream affordable Android phones on the market, including well-known Chinese brands. Although the risky phones named by Bitdefender are not common in Taiwan, if you travel to China and other places for business, you should be especially careful not to buy low-priced phones from unknown sources.

The scariest thing about Midnight Mimosa is that it has extremely high system permissions. It can secretly install or delete apps, open permissions on its own, and even download and execute other malicious programs remotely without the user's knowledge. What’s even more cunning is that it will temporarily disable the Google Play Store before installing malicious programs in an attempt to avoid Google Play Protect’s security detection, making it more difficult for users to detect abnormalities.

Malicious software has extremely high permissions and your phone may be controlled by hackers

Judging from the information currently available, the main purpose of Midnight Mimosa seems to be to make illegal profits through infected mobile phones. One of the methods is to secretly display ads or create false ad clicks without the user's knowledge, in order to earn advertising revenue.

What is even more worrying is that attackers can turn infected mobile phones into part of a large botnet, allowing the mobile phone to act as a proxy node, and even be used to launch distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS). You think you just bought a cheap Android phone, but you may make your phone a tool controlled by hackers without knowing it.

Thousands of mobile phones around the world are affected by viruses that are difficult to remove

During a two-year observation period, researchers have discovered thousands of devices involved in this wave of malware activity in more than 150 countries around the world. Among them, Mexico, France and Italy are concentrated, followed by the United States, Germany, Brazil and Spain.

Since Midnight Mimosa is not easy to completely remove from your phone, if you find yourself buying a problematic phone, the best way is to "discard it immediately."

"You May Also Want to See"

New virus hides in 50 Android apps! Downloaded more than 2.3 million times, these people are the most dangerous