After Xiaomi, Sony now accused of data theft

Xiaomi has been facing the brunt of stealing data from the user’s handsets and transmitting information to their servers in Beijing, China. Not only here in India, Xiaomi is also under surveillance by the Taiwanese government for the similar accusation.

However, a recent news report stated that Sony’s latest Xperia smartphones are also transmitting user information to the Chinese servers, without the consent of the user.

Data privacy is a huge topic and becomes very critical when it is found that it is being saved overseas. China has been accused of spying by several countries and the recent news about Xiaomi spying the Indian user via their smartphones has not gone down well.

According to recent report on Geek, brand new Sony Xperia smartphones are sending data back to the servers in China without the consent of the user.

If you own one of the recently launched smartphones from Sony, there are high chances of your data being automatically transmitted back to Chinese servers, even though you may have not installed a single new application on it.

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

Sony has been struggling to stay afloat in the smartphone segment for a while. The last thing the Japanese company would want is to be accused of stealing the consumer’s data.

According to the report, a few new Sony Xperia smartphone users have discovered a strange folder by the name of ‘Baidu’. This folder appears even though you have not installed a single application. Once you delete the folder and reset the smartphone to factory defaults, the folder appears back automatically.

Though the folder is not of much concern, the folder is a mark that there is a service active in the background that connects automatically to the servers in China. Baidu is a Chinese web services company offering search services in China.

Several users on the Sony Xperia Care support forum have also reported this strange folder appearing on their smartphones. Equally confused, they are asking other users if they have witnessed the same issue. Many are mistaking the folder created by different apps such as WhatsApp, Google, Viber and many more.

Google’s stock Android operating systems do not have this issue. This means that the smartphone has a third-party app which is the main culprit. Sony does ship their smartphones with bloatware, which are filled with useful to useless apps.

Android Headlines also stated that reports from several forums claim Sony Xperia users with Android 4.4.2 and 4.4.4 firmware are at a risk of the Baidu spyware. The folder seems to be created by Sony’s own built-in service ‘My Xperia’. The service is allegedly sending information to the Chinese servers. Though it is not confirmed as to what data is being sent back, nevertheless, the smartphone is definitely risking user data.

Back in 2005-2007, Sony was accused of spying user computers with rootkit software that automatically installs itself via Sony music CDs into the users’ computers. This rootkit, which cannot be uninstalled, would spy on the user’s private music listening habits and send the information back to the servers.

According to Wikipedia, ‘one of the programs installed even if the user refused its EULA, and it "phoned home" with reports on the user's private listening habits; the other was not mentioned in the EULA at all, contained code from several pieces of open-source software in an apparent infringement of copyright, and configured the operating system to hide the software's existence, leading to both programs being classified as rootkits. Sony BMG initially denied that the rootkits were harmful. It then released, for one of the programs, an "uninstaller" that only un-hid the program, installed additional software which could not be easily removed, collected an email address from the user, and introduced further security vulnerabilities.’

Geek stated that Sony has promised to resolve the issue and make sure that the Baidu folder does not show up.

If you own a Sony Xperia smartphone and find the Baidu folder showing up, please report the same to the Sony forums or check with your nearest Sony service centre.

Also don’t forget to report the same in a comment below for the benefit of other users. Report the smartphone name / model number, operating system version and the path of the folder you spotted it in.

This article will be updated as soon as there are more inputs from users and Sony.