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Samsung embeds IronSource spyware app on phones across WANA

(smex.org)
845 points the-anarchist | 2 comments | 21 Jun 25 03:06 UTC | HN request time: 0.428s | source
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OutOfHere ◴[21 Jun 25 04:44 UTC] No.44334583[source]▶
Samsung currently has an unremovable spyware app on North American phones that pastes (records) everything copied to the clipboard by any app. It is the Samsung Keyboard app. It cannot be removed. It doesn't matter if you're using any other keyboard app. Samsung Keyboard pastes (records) everything that gets copied to the clipboard by any app. The Samsung Keyboard app cannot even be disabled from Android.

As an aside, I recall getting a lot more ads when I used Samsung Keyboard.

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1. rs186 ◴[21 Jun 25 14:19 UTC] No.44337806[source]▶
Thanks for mentioning this! I saw it but never put much thoughts into it. Now it seems a huge security risk/active security exploit.

Strangely enough, I cannot reproduce this now.

I'll see when it happens again, and if I can uninstall keyboard via adb. It's just a pre-installed app, after all.

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2. OutOfHere ◴[21 Jun 25 17:04 UTC] No.44339055[source]▶
What do you mean you cannot reproduce it? Enable the setting in your Android to notify you whenever any app pasted from the keyboard.

Unless you have already used adb to disable or remove the app, the issue is guaranteed.