An economic development zone in China’s Zhejiang province found itself in the midst of an internet storm today after eagle-eyed readers discovered on its official website a list of equipment expenditures by the local police substation. The list included the 49,000-yuan purchase of surveillance equipment enabling police to remotely hijack Android and iPhone handsets for surveillance purposes.

wenzhou full

The content on the listing reads as follows:
Name: Mobile Trojan
Brand: Wuhan Hongxin (武汉虹信)
Description: For targeted use for Android phones or already jailbroken iPhones, enabling real-time monitoring of mobile conversations, instant messages, photos and other information (专门针对安卓手机或苹果已越狱手机,可实时监控手机通话,短信和照片等信息)
Unit Cost: 49,000 RMB
Purchased From: Wuhan Hongxin Telecommunication Technologies Co., Ltd. (武汉虹信通信技术有限责任公司)
Here is a close-up:
close up

The expense list, posted to the website of the Wenzhou Economic and Technology Development Zone on December 15, 2014, was removed by early this afternoon, yielding the following notice:
page not found

Posted initially to social media in China, screenshots of the development zone webpage were shared this morning on Caijing.com.cn, the online version of Caijing magazine. The Caijing post was also shared at Sina.com, one of China’s top web portal sites.
caijing on wenzhou zone

Posts originally available at other major web portals, including Sohu.com and QQ.com, had been deleted by early this afternoon. Just in case, here is a downloadable PDF version of the Caijing story: 温州经济技术开发区公安分局购入可实时监控手机的木马_政经时政_政经频道首页_财经网 – CAIJING.COM.CN.
QQ 404
A 404 error comes up for the post at QQ.com about the purchase of mobile surveillance equipment at the Wenzhou Economic and Technology Development Zone. Users are directed instead to a site for charitable donations helping missing children.
The Wuhan company that appears, on the basis of the now-deleted report, to have manufactured and sold the equipment in question is Wuhan Hongxin Telecommunication Technologies Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the Fiberhome Technologies Group. The company is a state-owned enterprise directly under the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.
More about the company at Bloomberg Businessweek.
A Google Advanced Search of the company’s website turns up no public product listing for a “mobile trojan” (手机木马) technology.


David Bandurski

CMP Director

Latest Articles