20/11/2023
A researcher has discovered that a children's tablet is infected with malware, putting kids' data at risk of exposure.
In May of this year, Alexis Hancock's daughter received a children's tablet for her birthday, prompting immediate concern from Hancock, a security researcher.Expressing her apprehension, Hancock mentioned, "I looked at it kind of sideways because I’ve never heard of Dragon Touch," referring to the tablet's manufacturer. Subsequently, Hancock, an employee at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, discovered several security and privacy issues with the Dragon Touch KidzPad Y88X that could potentially jeopardize the data of her daughter and other children.Hancock's report, released on Thursday and previewed by TechCrunch before publication, revealed that the tablet contains traces of a well-known malware, operates on a version of Android from five years ago, comes pre-loaded with software classified as malware and a "potentially unwanted program" due to its history and extensive system-level permissions, and features an outdated version of a kid-specific app store.Despite Hancock's attempt to report these issues to Dragon Touch, the company remained unresponsive. inquiries also went unanswered.Among the concerning findings was the presence of Corejava on the tablet, a type of malware identified by cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes as malicious earlier in the year. Additionally, the tablet came with Adups, the same software discovered in some Android TVs, used for "firmware over the air" updates. Malwarebytes has classified Adups as both malware and a "potentially unwanted program" due to its capability to automatically download and install new malware from the internet.Although the detected malware on the tablet appeared inactive, programmed only to send data to dormant servers, the overall security and privacy flaws raise significant concerns about the safety of children using the Dragon Touch KidzPad
