New research uncovers shocking information that a Chinese ad network called Mintegral has been spying on user activity and committing ad fraud through over 1,200 applications. The applications have over 300 million installs per month since July of 2019, meaning that this issue likely impacts billions of total app installs on Apple devices. Impacted apps include popular games like Talking Tom, Helix Jump, PicsArt, Subway Surfers, and Gardenscapes.
Researchers have stated that this is a major privacy concern to hundreds of millions of consumers, including many of them residing in the US. This could pose a national security threat to the United States, as the Chinese company has been spying on users who have downloaded the applications. The SDK malicious component was integrated into different iOS applications and making their way into the App Store, however, security researchers at Snyk caught the slip-up and have been working to mitigate the risks posed by Mintegral.
