Indian Army warns not to use Xiaomi Phones

Chinese smartphone brand, Xiaomi is creating a lot of buzz with its economically priced, premium smartphones that are known to sell out in minutes or even seconds. The company has become one of the leading handset sellers in the world displacing Samsung in its home market for the numero uno position.

However, of late there have been reports that Xiaomi phones silently send users data to remote servers. The latest charges come from security software and solutions company F-Secure, which tested Xiaomi’s Redmi 1S phone.

Kenny Li of Hong Kong forum, IMA Mobile, recently noticed something odd with its Redmi Note smartphone. He discovered that the device continued to make connections with IP addresses in Beijing, China. The device kept trying to make the connection, even after switching off the company’s iCloud-like MiCloud service.

Although it was pointed out that the transmissions occur only over Wi-Fi, though the device does stay in contact with the servers via small “handshakes” while using cellular data. Li then tried erasing the version of Android and installed a new version of Android, But the problem still persisted.

Security Researchers from F-Secure Antivirus firm also confirmed that Xiaomi phones (RedMi 1S handset) send quite a lot of personal and sensitive data to “api.account.xiaomi.com“ server located in China, including following information:

IMEI Number of your phone
IMSI Number (through MI Cloud)
Your contacts and their details
Text Messages

Previously China has accused companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple for spying on countries. So, what China is doing? The same.

Xiaomi, which is also known as Apple of China, has yet to respond to the allegations that the Redmi Note secretly sends user data to a China-based server.

If the allegations on the Xiaomi handset come true, it wouldn’t be the first time a Chinese smartphone was found spying on its users. It had happened before as well, China has been known for its Digital Spying and privacy invasion.

What’s Indian Army Interfence in this ?

“F-secure, a leading security solution company, recently carried out a test of Xiaomi Redmi 1S, the company’s budget smartphone, and found that the phone was forwarding carrier name, phone number, IMEI (the device identifier) plus numbers from address book and text messages back to Beijing,” says an advisory issued by the Indian Air Force to its personnel.