 Thursday, July 14, 2016 in Security  No Comments |  | Security experts have discovered that the Maxthon web browser collects sensitive information and sends it to a server in China. Researchers warn that the harvested data could be highly valuable for malicious actors.
Developed by China-based Maxthon International, the browser is available for all major platforms in more than 50 languages. In 2013, after the NSA surveillance scandal broke, the company boasted about its focus on privacy and security, and the use of strong encryption.
Researchers at Fidelis Cybersecurity and Poland-based Exatel recently found that Maxthon regularly sends a file named ueipdata.zip to a server in Beijing, China, via HTTP. Further analysis revealed that ueipdata.zip contains an encrypted file named dat.txt. This file stores information on the operating system, CPU, ad blocker status, homepage URL, websites visited by the user (including online searches), and installed applications and their version number.
While dat.txt is encrypted, experts easily found the key needed to decrypt it, giving them access to the information. Exatel researchers demonstrated how a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacker could intercept the data as it travels from the client to the Maxthon server in China.
Security Week | |
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