Indian Air Force initiates high-alert on Xiaomi smartphones

Earlier, Xiaomi was in a huge controversy about data security. Xiaomi was accused of stealing data from the user’s handsets and transmitting it to their servers back in China. The security threat accusation was slammed by Xiaomi, who denied of any such acts.

Similar threats of data being leaked out to the China servers were also cited in Taiwan and the Government there is investigating the same.

Update: Xiaomi to approach authorities to sort security concerns

Back here, the Indian Air Force is planning on banning its force and families on using the Xiaomi smartphones. The IAF has alerted the users about the same threat of data being leaked out of the country, by default. The Indian Air Force has accused the Chinese smartphone maker for retrieving user information and sending it back to the data servers in Beijing, China. However, Xiaomi claims that their smartphones are safe and the Indian Air Force had issues a notice based on a two-month-old report by F-Secure. The initial testing was done by F-Secure on August 7, 2014 on a Redmi 1S, which had the issue of data automatically being transmitted. However, post the update of the OS, they tested the handset again on August 14, to confirm that the issue is no longer present.

Also read: Is Xiaomi really spying on the Indian user’s privacy?

Reports claim that the Indian Air Force has issued a medium alert to their squadrons and their families about the threat and have requested them to avoid using the Chinese smartphones. The IAF’s intelligence unit has prepared a note based on the investigations and information by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team.

Also Read: How to know if your smartphone is leaking data, and where

The Note states that F-Secure, a security firm, carried out tests on the Redmi 1S, only to find that the phone was forwarding the carrier name, phone number, IMEI, address book records and SMS to the Chinese servers in Beijing. The report also mentioned about a user in Hong Kong, reporting that the Redmi Note automatically connected to a particular IP address hosted in China. The IP address belongs to the CNNIC, which is the administrative agency for Internet affairs operating under the Ministry of Information Industry of China.

Also read: Xiaomi to shift user data out of China due to privacy concerns

Update: Xiaomi to approach authorities to sort security concerns