Study finds half of most popular VPN apps linked to China

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.ft.com/content/e5567d8a-ee65-11e8-89c8-d36339d835c0

By Madhumita Murgia
European Technology Correspondent
FT.com
NOVEMBER 22, 2018

More than half of the world's 30 most popular smartphone apps for browsing 
the internet privately are owned by Chinese companies, according to a new 
study that raises significant privacy concerns.

Seventeen of the apps, which offer to connect users to the internet 
through a secure tunnel known as a "virtual private network" (VPN), were 
owned either by Chinese companies or companies appearing to have links to 
China.

Collectively, the apps, which include TurboVPN, VPN Proxy Master, VPN 360 
and Snap VPN, have been downloaded more than 100m times on Android devices 
and iPhones.

But the companies operating them often had very limited privacy policies, 
said Simon Migliano, the head of research at Top10VPN.com, which reviews 
VPN services.

[...]



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