Allowing apps to access your location or not? This is the question.
More than 500 mobile apps are embedded with a malware which collects users’ location data, as reported by WSJ last week. The tracking malware is developed by a Virginia-based company called Anomaly Six LLC.
App developers are paid to add the tracking code in their apps, and therefore they turn a blind eye to the data breach. Anomaly Six aggregates the data and sells it to the private-sector clients and US government agencies, for undisclosed purposes.
As a federal contractor, Anomaly Six was formed by US military vets Brendan Huff and Jeffrey Heinz in 2018. The two founders previously worked at the data analytics company Babel Street, which developed a similar tracking tool named Locate X. It was reported earlier this year that Locate X allows federal law enforcement to track phones, using data from popular mobile apps.
It is noted that Brandan Huff, a former Army counterintelligence officer, also holds the position of VP business development at Semantic AI. According to the company’s LinkedIn page, its enterprise intelligence solution is used broadly by financial institutions and federal agencies including DOD, SOF, Department of Homeland Security and many others.
