Tecno Smartphones Are Secretly Stealing Money From People Around The World

It is no longer news that the world we live in,  has continued to rage on in a cyber pandemic. Stories about government and private spooky information gathering systems are not new to our ears. For quite a while we've seen several instances where our smartphones and social media platforms have been proven to be harvesting user data.

Tecno mobile users as well as consumers of other made in China phone users might want to have a rethink as new reports have indicted the devices for allegedly pilfering money from its users. 

BuzzFeed News who first broke the news, reported that some cheap Tecno phones have been pre-installed with a malware which is programmed to steal money from customers.

The case is very peculiar to the Tecno W2 phone which was said to have been pre-loaded with the Triada and xHelper software.

The stated malware would stealthily download and install apps and subscribe to paid services. This brought about excessive data consumption to unexpected billings especially for buyers who were already some of the most disadvantaged in the world.

In a session with Buzzfeed, Nathan Collier, an analyst with Malwarebytes stated that Triada and xHelper were very insidious as they not only create pop-ups and bring unrest to the phone users, the malware can’t be removed with a factory reset of the phone.

The phones are said to have been shipped to countries around the world infected with the Triada and xHelper software malware which was designed to steal money from phone users. 

A bulk of the infected phones were shipped to Africa countries (their usual dumping ground); countries like South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Ghana are said to have received these phones. Indonesia and Myanmar were also said to have received the devices.

Secure-D, a professional cybersecurity firm and a leading anti-fraud platform reported that between March and December 2019, it had blocked well over 844,000 of such malware transactions.

Meanwhile, Transsion, the Tecno brand owners, has faulted Tecno mobile vendors within their supply chain as responsible for the malware. Transsion admitted it delivered fixes for the Triada malware in back in March of 2018 and that of xHelper late in 2019. This has still not solved the problem as cases of the malware are still being reported even through April of 2020.

Though Tecno is appealing, this development has done and is doing a huge damage to Tecno's reputation even though there has been no evidence of a malicious intent on their part. 

Tecno is one of the few brands aimed primarily at low-budget buyers. Potential Tecno phone buyers are now in a dilemma as they may not have many alternatives if they choose to avoid Tecno products.