Gionee, a renowned Chinese smartphone manufacturer planted malware on more than 20 million of its devices, and the Chinese court has published a verdict as well on this case. A recent report has come out that Gionee has planted a Trojan Horse on more than 20 million units of it. By which, the company is earning money from unsought ads and other several adverse activities without its user’s knowledge.
Reports tell us that the Shenzhen Zhipu Technology Co. Ltd. has implanted this using a software called “Story Lock Screen” app. Shenzhen Zhipu Technology Co. Ltd. is a subsidiary of Gionee. It is not a recent case. The first malware has been found in December 2018. So, from 2018 to today’s age, Gionee has already earned something around $4.2 million, corrupting almost 21.75 million smartphones. The Shenzhen Zhipu Company combined with the Beijing Baice Company has executed the “pull activities” a total of 2.88 billion times. From this pulling business, the companies have earned almost around RMB 27.85 million.
For all those consequences, Xu Li, Zhu Ying, Jia Zhengqiang, and Pan Qi were found as culprits for illegally controlling Gionee smartphones without the user’s knowledge and are sentenced from around 3 to 3.5 years imprisonment along with a CNY 200,000 (~$30,000) fine each. Interestingly, Gionee is not only the smartphone brand that used malicious software on its devices. Some other cheap Chinese brands are also there in this list, like for say Tecno. The government is taking drastic actions against it.
