Chinese quartet conspired to plant a malicious SDK inside an app that came preinstalled on Gionee devices.
Four Chinese nationals were sentenced last week to prison sentences for participating in a scheme that planted malware on devices sold by Chinese smartphone maker Gionee. The scheme involved Xu Li, the legal representative of Shenzhen Zhipu Technology, a Gionee subsidiary tasked with selling the company’s phones, and the trio of Zhu Ying, Jia Zhengqiang, and Pan Qi, the deputy general manager and software engineers for software firm Beijing Baice Technology. According to court documents published last week by Chinese authorities, the two companies entered into a hidden agreement in late 2018 to create a powerful software development kit (SDK) that would allow the two parties to take control of Gionee smartphones after they were sold to customers.
