The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) is now also initiating an investigation into Chinese smartphones from Xiaomi after the Lithuanian Center for Cybersecurity NKSC (Nacionalinio Kibernetinio Saugumo Centro) discovered security gaps and censorship possibilities in warned the smartphones.
Politicians from the SPD and CDU had previously requested an investigation by the BSI in order to investigate the information in the report from Lithuania (PDF), which the BSI has received since Wednesday, and to assess the extent of the risk. The Lithuanian Center for Cybersecurity had discovered an option on the Xiaomi Mi 10T 5G that allows censorship of the integrated browser, which is deactivated in Europe, but can also be activated remotely from Xiaomi at any time. However, this not only allows political content to be censored, but also pornographic content. These discoveries led the Deputy Defense Minister Margiris Abukevicius to recommend to their own citizens “not to buy new Chinese telephones and get rid of those already bought as soon as possible”.
Xiaomi rejects allegations
Xiaomi rejects the allegations from the report from Lithuania and stated that no communication is censored and will not do so in the future. In Germany, the federal authorities officially do not use any company cell phones from a Chinese manufacturer.
In the second quarter of 2021, Xiaomi was the second largest smartphone behind Samsung and ahead of Apple for the first time thanks to a growth of 83 percent -Manufacturer in the world after Huawei suffered severe losses due to the US sanctions.
No defects with OnePlus, small ones with Huawei
While the Lithuanian cybersecurity center had nothing to complain about with the tested OnePlus smartphone, the OnePlus 8T 5G, the Huawei P40 5G was criticized for the fact that Huawei opened the app installation refers to third-party sources classified as unsafe if an app is not available in its own app gallery, which also refers to apps with malware.