🔍 Low-cost Android phones found shipping with firmware-level malware

Bitdefender’s Midnight Mimosa findings describe low-cost Android devices with MediaTek chipsets arriving with preinstalled malware in the system partition. The framework silently installs apps, commits ad fraud, and can register phones as residential proxies. Researchers tracked thousands of affected devices in more than 150 countries over roughly two years.

The case points to supply-chain compromise with system-level persistence, making removal difficult without firmware cleanup or ADB intervention. It also shows how consumer handsets can be repurposed at scale for traffic relay and monetization while masking malicious installs as normal Android activity.

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