Exposing Chinese users with free VPN

Cybernews research showed that the Airplane Accelerates applications, whose Chinese version has been viewed more than 3,000 times in the Apple App Store, have leaked an inordinate amount of users’ personal information, including usernames, IP addresses, domain names, and time stamps. Since versions of this application were available for Windows, MacOS, iOS and Android, researchers believe that the information of at least tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of users in China has been exposed.

According to Aetna from Isna, according to the researchers, the leak of this information is considered an important event because it can be used to identify users who have used this application. Examining the Android version of this application also shows that it can act as a spyware and has remote code execution capabilities.

Researchers have observed an alarmingly high volume of execution requests from the Android version of this VPN application, which included requests for access to the camera and audio recording, modification of the contact list, external storage and even installation of new software. Although antivirus applications do not detect this application as malware, the analysis has raised the alarm.

CyberNews reached out to the Australian company AP Network PTY Ltd, which launched the free VPN service, but after receiving no response, decided to make its findings public.

According to the website TechRadar, this is the latest example of the dangers of using a free VPN service to access information online anonymously. From being tracked by malicious ads to leaking personal information and infecting your device with viruses, the price users pay for a free VPN can be quite high.