Graham Cluley, a security analyst who spent much of his career working for anti-virus companies, said such data collection was “clearly a concern.” There are ways for a security firm to check for threats without having to collect so much information, which could potentially be used to lessen users’ privacy.” Will Strafach, founder of the Guardian iOS security app and a researcher of smartphone privacy issues, said there was “no good reason for to collect this information.”
(Cheetah says hashes would complicate its security checks, as it needs to look out for subtle changes in Wi-Fi names, such as when a zero is change to an “o,” or previously unknown malicious sites.) Machines can read them and check such hashes against databases of hashes of previously flagged malicious websites or Wi-Fi networks without the need for humans to view them. For websites and for Wi-Fi hot spots, they could turn the information into “hashes”-chunks of random letters and numbers that represent the websites. Two independent security researchers and Cirlig say there are much more secure ways to collect the information. Cirlig, however, noted that the domain where the information was relayed was registered in China. The company says it complies with all local privacy laws, isn’t selling users’ private data and isn’t sending information back to a Chinese server, but to an Amazon Web Services system outside of the country. “We do not collect data to track users' privacy and we have no intention to do that,” a spokesperson said. It’s also doing so to provide certain services like suggesting recent trending searches.Īs for accessing Wi-Fi network names, Cheetah told Forbes the reasoning was much the same: to prevent users joining malicious Wi-Fi networks. For instance, it’s monitoring internet browsing to ensure the sites users are visiting aren’t dangerous. I personally think that they cross the line.”Ĭheetah says it is collecting users’ Web traffic and other data, but is doing so largely for security reasons. It’s just that they are playing ball in a gray area and it’s up to researchers like us to stand up and call foul whenever they think that they cross the line. “I can’t know for sure what they’re infringing upon. “Technically speaking, they have a privacy policy that covers kind of everything and gives them a blank check to exfiltrate everything,” says Cirlig.
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