Government sweep exposes viruses in Chinese smartphone apps

More than 60 mainland smartphone applications tested positive for viruses in an official sweep of over 50,000 apps, the information technology ministry said yesterday.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a report that the apps were infected with software that stole personal data, ran up phone bills and sent unauthorised text messages.

The ministry carried out spot checks on apps downloaded from more 40 mainland Android app distributors in the third quarter, and found problems with 67 applications from more than 30 distributors. It named the dubious apps and their distributors.

Most of the infected apps were little-known games and lottery applications, but a small number were for educational uses such as foreign language learning.

Major application distributors including Wandoujia, Baidu's 91 and AppChina were on the list, but lesser-known Zhuannet and Gfan were responsible for the most virus-laden apps.

The Cyberspace Administration said last week that it was looking into ways to regulate the country's booming market in smartphone apps to rein in privacy leaks and malware.