Tag: Baidu

Thousands of applications running on this code have been found to be collecting and sharing private data.

According to researchers at Citizen Lab in Canada, there are currently thousands of popular mobile apps that are running code created by Baidu, the internet giant from China, and the code has been causing those applications to collect the personal information of the users and transmit it to the company.

The researchers pointed out that a great deal of that personal information would be very easy to intercept.

It is estimated that the mobile apps using Baidu’s code have had hundreds of millions of downloads. The researchers have traced the issue back to problems in the software development kit (SDK) by Baido for creating Android applications. The mobile security threat applies to the Baidu browser as well as the apps that were created by the company and other firms that employ the same SDK in their app development. That said, while it was primarily Android applications that were affected, the Windows browser from Baidu was also among them.

The same researchers said that comparable types of security issues were present in the Alibaba UC Browser mobile app.

The UC Browser from Alibaba and another popular mobile browser that is broadly downloaded and used in the largest internet market on the planet have also both been affected with unsecured personal data transmission.

That said, while Alibaba has already moved forward and has repaired the vulnerabilities, Baidu had yet to have completed that task at the time of the writing of this article. The company was, however, in the process of making the repairs to the holes in the kit’s encryption. Still, it admitted that it would not cease to collect data for commercial use. Some of the data collected by Baidu will also be shared with third parties. Still, the company said that it “only provides what data is lawfully requested by duly constituted law enforcement agencies.”

Among the unencrypted information collected through the Baidu code based mobile apps are the search terms that have been used by the user, his or her website visits, and his or her location. This, according to the Citizen Lab chief researcher, Jeffrey Knockel.

Baidu aims to take advantage of foreign talent in order to excel in the mobile gaming market

Mobile gaming is becoming more popular in China and companies that have helped the growth of these games, such as Baidu, are beginning to seek expansion beyond the country’s borders. Baidu is China’s largest search engine company and has played a pivotal role in the expansion of the mobile games sector. The company operates a mobile gaming platform that accounts for some 100 million application downloads each day. Baidu recently visited Canada in order to spark relationships with talented game developers.

Company meets with developers from Vancouver and Toronto

Representatives of Baidu Mobile Games met with more than 20 game developers in Vancouver and developers from Toronto. Both Vancouver and Toronto are considered “hot spots” when it comes to animation talent and mobile game development and, as such, Baidu has been making an effort to connect with this talent in the hopes of making new mobile games more available in China. Competition in China’s mobile gaming space is beginning to grow at a rapid pace and more companies are looking for foreign talent to give them the edge in the booming market.

China is an attractive market for ambitious game developers

China is a very attractive market for the game industry as a whole. An estimated 300 million people play mobile games every day. These people are willing to pay for the games they play, if these games are able to hold their attention and are not too big in terms of data. Many foreign development studios have been trying to break into the Chinese market, but doing so has been quite difficult. Having the backing of a company like Baidu can make this process much simpler and give developers access to a huge demographic that is hungry for mobile gaming.

Baidu has yet to announce partnerships with Canadian developers

Things move quite quickly in the mobile gaming world, so the developers that Baidu has met with may already be creating games for the Chinese company. These games may be released in a matter of months, but Baidu has not yet made any official announcement concerning any partnership it has made with Canadian game developers.