Amazon halts sale of Blu phones preloaded with 'potential' Chinese spyware

Amazon has ceased the sale of phones from Blu, a Miami-based budget handset maker, "due to a potential security issue," according to CNET.

The stringent move from the online shopping giant comes in the wake of recent allegations from Kryptowire, a Virginia-based security firm, against Blu. At last week's Black Hat security conference, the company revealed that a spyware from Chinese software company Shanghai Adups Technology was present on a handful of Blu devices.

They also demonstrated how the spyware was discretely collecting data such as call logs, text messages, identification data, and even location details from cell tower IDs and sending it to remote servers in China. Ryan Johnson, a research engineer and co-founder of Kryptowire, said "They replaced [the malware] with nicer versions. I have captured the network traffic of them using the command and control channel when they did it".

Keeping a tab on the major security fiasco, Amazon issued a statement saying, "Because security and privacy of our customers is of the utmost importance, all BLU phone models have been made unavailable for purchase on Amazon.com until the issue is resolved". The retail giant, which partnered with Blu for its Prime Exclusive Phone's Program, removed all Blu phone listings from its page and requested buyers to contact the company for more specific information on the issue.

Blu did not comment on the retailer's latest move, but the young phone maker denied any kind of wrongdoing on its part last week. Assuring that there were no privacy breaches, a spokeswoman for the company had said, Blu "has several policies in place which take customer privacy and security seriously".

To recall, the sale of Blu phones on Amazon was also halted last year when Kryptowire found Adups' spyware on their phones. Since then, the security firm has been monitoring the products from the company for any kind malicious apps or tools.