Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Mobile & Wireless

Finland to Investigate Suspected Nokia Chinese Data Breach

Finnish authorities will launch an investigation into claims that Nokia phones have been transmitting users’ personal data to China, the country’s data protection ombudsman announced on Thursday.

Finnish authorities will launch an investigation into claims that Nokia phones have been transmitting users’ personal data to China, the country’s data protection ombudsman announced on Thursday.

“Based on our initial analysis it appears that personal data has also been transferred (to China),” Reijo Aarnio, Finland’s data protection ombudsman, told the news agency STT.

The Norwegian broadcaster NRK published claims on Thursday that data from Nokia’s 7 Plus mobile phones, including location information and serial numbers, has been sent to servers of the state-owned company China Telecom.

“The idea is that data moves freely within the EU, but when we go outside the EU, there must always be a legal basis,” Aarnio said.

“We are requesting information to try and find out whether there was a legal basis in this case. The second thing is how notification has worked, so were phone users aware that information about them is being transferred to China?” he said. 

The Finnish-owned company HMD Global, which manufactures Nokia handsets and has recently seen robust sales growth on the Chinese market, told NRK that some information from the 7 Plus handset has been sent to China, but denied that individual users can be identified from the data.

“We can confirm that there has been an error in the software packing process in a single batch of one handset model, which mistakenly attempted to send activation data to a foreign server,” the company said in a statement reported by NRK.

“The data was never processed and no personal information was shared with third parties or authorities,” it said. 

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

“This has now been fixed and almost any device affected by this error has now installed the update. HMD Global takes the safety and privacy of our customers seriously,” the company said.

In recent years, data security concerns over smartphones and network equipment made by the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei have drawn warnings from western intelligence agencies and seen the company banned from selling its 5G network equipment to US, Australian and New Zealand markets.

Written By

AFP 2023

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Understand how to go beyond effectively communicating new security strategies and recommendations.

Register

Join us for an in depth exploration of the critical nature of software and vendor supply chain security issues with a focus on understanding how attacks against identity infrastructure come with major cascading effects.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Mobile & Wireless

Infonetics Research has shared excerpts from its Mobile Device Security Client Software market size and forecasts report, which tracks enterprise and consumer security client...

Mobile & Wireless

Samsung smartphone users warned about CVE-2023-21492, an ASLR bypass vulnerability exploited in the wild, likely by a spyware vendor.

Malware & Threats

Apple’s cat-and-mouse struggles with zero-day exploits on its flagship iOS platform is showing no signs of slowing down.

Fraud & Identity Theft

A team of researchers has demonstrated a new attack method that affects iPhone owners who use Apple Pay and Visa payment cards. The vulnerabilities...

Mobile & Wireless

Critical security flaws expose Samsung’s Exynos modems to “Internet-to-baseband remote code execution” attacks with no user interaction. Project Zero says an attacker only needs...

Mobile & Wireless

Apple rolled out iOS 16.3 and macOS Ventura 13.2 to cover serious security vulnerabilities.

Mobile & Wireless

Two vulnerabilities in Samsung’s Galaxy Store that could be exploited to install applications or execute JavaScript code by launching a web page.

Mobile & Wireless

Asus patched nine WiFi router security defects, including a highly critical 2018 vulnerability that exposes users to code execution attacks.