Researchers find Android third-party keyboard app Go Keyboard spying on users

Photo by Tony Lam Hoang on Unsplash

We can’t stress enough how careful you need to be about the things you download or use. A new finding by Adguard researchers reinforces that idea. They have found that two variants of keyboard app Go Keyboard have been sending personal information to remote servers while also executing unauthorized code on devices. The apps in question, which are developed by Chinese GOMO Dev Team, are the Go Keyboard – Emoji keyboard, Swipe input, GIFS and Go Keyboard – Emoticon keyboard, Free Theme, GIF apps. These apps have been downloaded between 100k and 500k times and are rated 4.5 and 4.4 stars, respectively.

Some of the information the apps are collecting include Google Play Store account, screen size, network type, and Android version and build number. Plus, it communicates with tracking networks and executes codes and downloads plugins that are marked as adware by various anti-virus programs. What the researchers are really worried about is the possibility of the app tracking everything you type, which it can do if the developers want to. The app is already in violation of Google Play Store’s policies. Adguard has passed on their findings to Google.

Source: Android Authority