The Hacker News reported on Friday that two browser apps created by Chinese phone maker Xiaomi have a critical vulnerability that has not yet been patched even after being privately reported to the company. The Mi Browser comes built-in with the company’s Mi and Redmi smartphones, while the Mint browser is available on Google Play for non-Xiaomi devices. The Hacker News report said that the vulnerability is an address bar spoofing issue that allows a malicious website to control the URLs displayed. The flaw can be used to easily trick users into thinking they are visiting a trusted website when actually being served with a phishing or malicious content. The issue only affects the international variants of both web browsers and versions distributed with Xiaomi smartphones in China do not contain this vulnerability. Xiaomi, it seems, rewarded the researcher who reported the issue with a bug bounty, but left the vulnerability unpatched.
Second serious issue in two days
This was the second severe issue in two days that researchers identified in pre-installed apps on Xiaomi’s Android devices. On Thursday, Check Point security researchers disclosed a vulnerability in its Guard Provider app. The app is meant to be a security feature but actually exposes users to an attack as it gets its updates through an unsecured HTTP connection, CNet reported. Check Point said it disclosed this vulnerability to Xiaomi, and that the phone maker released a patch to fix the flaw.
Xiaomi launched Mi Pay in India in March
Last month, Xiaomi launched Mi Pay, its UPI payment app, for Xiaomi smartphone users in India. Mi Pay has an NPCI certification and uses ICICI Bank’s payment services for its UPI app. The company claimed that Mi Pay data would be stored only on Indian servers and that it was working with E&Y and Lucideus for data storage and safety.
In June 2018, Xiaomi updated its India and US privacy policy to collect more data than before: financial information like bank account numbers and credit card information, along with “social information” such as “current employer, current job title, education background, professional training background etc”.
