He said that users were not informed of this activity and were not given a way to opt out. Dr Antivirus also collected a list of installed apps on the device and uploaded that as well.
MalwareBytes then turned its attention to Dr Antivirus and found that it was also uploading data in a zip file to the same subdomain as Open Any Files, Reed said. The behaviour of Adware Doctor was very similar to a Trend Micro’s product called Open Any Files which turned out to be uploading data to a subdomain, a behaviour that MalwareBytes notes has recently stopped. While there is nothing intrinsically suspicious about sending data to China, he said that it might not be subject to the same legal protections for stored data as personally identifiable information in the US or EU would be. Adware Doctor downloads personal data from devices, packages it in a zip file and sends to a server based in China, according to Thomas Reed, director of Mac and mobile at MalwareBytes Labs. Wardle noted that the app developers even had to exploit a flaw in IoS to enable them to access the list of running processes.
In a blog post, Wardle details the how Adware Doctor exfiltrates data such as browser history from Safari, Chrome and Firefox, a list of all running processes and a list of all software that has been downloaded to the device. For clarity, Trend Micro says it does not have anything to do with Adware Doctor. He joined forces with security researcher Patrick Wardle at MalwareBytes to dig into the behaviour of an app called Adware Doctor.
The exfiltration of data from apps was noted by a security researcher who posts on Twitter under the name of who joined the microblogging site in August 2018 and lists his home country as Germany. We take data privacy very seriously and will do anything necessary to ensure our customers are protected." "We take this situation seriously and are diligently digging into this before sharing additional details. Antivirus, an antivirus app that protects Mac users from adware and hijack browsers. Cleaner, a cleanup app that offers Memory Optimization, Disk Cleaning and System Monitoring, and Dr. Trend Micro declined to even confirm that the apps had been removed from the App Store, but in a statement sent to SC in response to a request for information, the company said: "Trend Micro is aware of a recent scrutiny of some of our consumer applications, including our Dr.
Apple says that apps are tested prior to being offered to users in the App Store.
The security apps are consumer level security apps owned by Trend Micro which were available through the Apple App Store which claims to provide users with a protected environment from which to safely download apps for their Apple devices. It employs nearly 6,000 people worldwide. Trend Micro is a Japanese company which reported ¥148 billion (£1 billion) turnover in 2017.
Two Trend Micro apps have been removed from the Apple app store in the past few days after allegations surfaced that they were exfiltrating user data.ĭr Cleaner was reportedly removed from the Apple App Store on Friday and Dr Antivirus, also owned by Trend, was reportedly removed this morning.