Fox Business: FBI warns US companies about Chinese tax software embedded with hidden malware

FBI warns US companies about Chinese tax software embedded with hidden malware
By Michael Ruiz. July 24, 2020

Weeks after a cybersecurity firm uncovered backdoor malware embedded in mandatory Chinese tax software, the FBI is reportedly warning U.S. companies doing business in China.

The software imposes a major security risk on victim companies – requiring them to use one of only two approved programs to pay their taxes – both of which have been found embedded with vulnerabilities, according to Trustwave, the cybersecurity firm.

Due to the comprimised security issues, the FBI sent out a warning Thursday to companies in the health care, chemical and finance industries, the technology news outlet ZDNet reported.

Quck summary. In order to do business in China, you are legally required to run certain specific software programs in order to pay Chinese taxes. This software is infected with malware, which installs backdoors into the computer, granting access to all of its files and all of its network connections. The data is being sent to unknown servers in China.

Tell me again, why companies continue to think it's a good idea to conduct business in China? You get cheap labor and the potential for Chinese sales in excahge for what? The Chinese government stealing all of your confidential data, including your trade secrets and financial information. Can anyone honestly claim that this is an acceptable cost?

Auto-rooting malware for Android

Three new malware strains infect 20k apps, impossible to wipe, only affect Android
By Daniel Eran Dilger
Thursday, November 05, 2015, 02:40 pm PT (05:40 pm ET)

A new adware scourge injecting itself into popular apps such as Facebook and Twitter is also "virtually impossible to uninstall," requiring infected users to replace their phones. Because it only affects users of Google's open-store Android app model, the device replacement requirement may accelerate the trend of users switching to iOS.

"A new trend for adware and an alarming one at that"

Three new families of "auto-rooting adware," detailed by security researchers at Lookout, are "a worrying development in the Android ecosystem" because each can root the device and install itself as a system application, making the contamination virtually impossible to remove as the infection is designed to survive even a "factory data reset" device wipe.

The group found infections among more than 20,000 popular apps, with many contaminated apps appearing to be legitimate, working titles ranging from Candy Crush to Facebook to Snapchat, WhatsApp, The New York Times and even Google Now.

I could use this article as the basis for a gratuitous swipe at Android and laugh at people who protest Apple's rules that force all installations to go through their App Store, but that would just be rude.