Xiaomi Mi4 Smartphone May Have Malware Preinstalled

[Marshall Honorof]

The Xiaomi Mi4 LTE, a popular smartphone in China, comes with malware built-in and a highly vulnerable version of Android.

Xiaomi Mi4 Smartphone May Have Malware Preinstalled : Read more

 

[Lee Sze Yong]

Phone tested was rooted. Testing company should know that most android phones are not rooted out of the box.

 

[Bartek Feltman]

Do Bluebox even bother to check if they got original MI4 not fake one?
Because original phone doesnt have mentioned apps installed in system.
Yt Service? Can they even tell us which APK package is responsible for that service?
Afaik ads and malware are present in fake xiaomi devices...

 

[Kiswum]

How can they import a Xiaomi phone from China, when Xiaomi doesn't sell the Mi4 outside the Chinese borders?
I think that they bought the phone from a webshop including an unofficial international ROM.
I don't even think that the original rom is rooted. You need to perform a few steps to root it or you need to download the xiaomi.eu rom. This was is indeed rooted and contains the weekly build.

Edit:
I just read the original article.
Thanks guys for not editing your message and spread this strange news into the world. Thank you for trying to bring Xiaomi down without all the facts...

Bluebox DID NOT purchased the phone at Xiaomi, but at a reseller.
The reseller could changed the rom with spyware.

The conclusion of Bluebox and your post should be the same:

This obviously means buying Xiaomi devices from a retail location is not recommended and only purchasing devices directly from mi.com will result in the supply chain integrity of the devices enterprises require.

 

[Ixel]

An interesting article, potentially with misleading information as well as potentially putting off users from buying Xiaomi devices in the near future. Lack of sufficient evidence makes me wonder if there's much truth to it and whether there might be another motive. If this is true then I strongly suspect the reseller/retailer is at fault, not Mi themselves. I've used various Mi devices and to date not had a single bit of malware detected when I used the original firmware - though I've since moved to the original Android ROM as I prefer it in comparison to the MIUI ROM..

 

[Jeremy Fr]

I don't understand the title : why using "may" when the fact have been proven?

 

[Kiswum]

The article should now be: "Researchers, purchased a very good fake Xiaomi Mi4 at an unofficial store".

Perhaps Tomsguide updates this article with the latest version of this story.
https/bluebox.com/blog/technical/popular-xiaomi-phone-could-put-data-at-risk/#_march8