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EXPOSED: Samsung phones in West Asia/North Africa (WANA) region embedded with 'unremovable' Israeli spyware (www.thecanary.co)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Blaze@piefed.zip to c/privacy@programming.dev

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An Israeli tech firm has quietly embedded spyware into Samsung smartphones - and it poses a serious surveillance threat

Original article from May: https://smex.org/open-letter-to-samsung-end-forced-israeli-app-installations-in-the-wana-region/

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[–] adhd_traco@piefed.social 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The app’s privacy settings claim that users can disable this data collection by turning off “AppCloud” in the app list. But, according to SMEX, deletion requires the user to submit a form that does not exist, making it impossible to fully remove, at least without advanced technical expertise.

Hm, I just uninstall AppCloud no problem in a non-rooted, stock android in and from the region.
It also showed the URI or whatever of com.something.aura.

However, can't find any Aura app.

Looks like Aura app gets installed by AppCloud. I'm a bit frustrated I can't find a list of apps known to be installed by AppCloud, or that include this *.aura.* URI. I mean this should be relevant for a shit ton of people and could be easily crowdsourced.

[–] adhd_traco@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago

Some more information:

I looked at four different Samsung phones today (physically in the region). 2x phones bought in Europe. 2x phones bought in the region.

All non-rooted, stock android.

None of the phones had Aura installed. Two of them had AppCloud installed (one EU phone, one phone from the region) and it couldn't be disabled as easily as the other phone. (I haven't tried ADB, etc. yet, just the standard uninstallation procedure).