Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/09/10/another-popular-antimalware-in.html
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I’m unclear by the way the post is worded. So is the actual Trend Micro Inc scooping up user data or is it a 3rd party pretending to be them?
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I had the same reaction, so I checked out the link, which contains this gem:
[ Update 9/10 4:50 am PT: The certificate issued for the domain drcleaner.com leaves no doubt that the apps are in fact distributed by Trend Micro. ]
Yikes. For folks in the IT industry, Trend Micro is not an unfamiliar name. And they’ve got hooks in a lot of the other apps we might use on a regular basis.
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Hm. That is tragic, i actually use their products at home to secure my PC and i paid for the whole year, i think i have something like 8 or 9 months left in the subscription. I guess its time to switch to Kapersky or something else ]:
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I think they were trying to be very careful not to make accusations they weren’t sure of - they know for sure that the app is distributed by someone claiming to be Trend Micro Inc. It’s very likely the real Trend Micro Inc, but they didn’t want to make that accusation until they were certain.
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On drcleaner.com, they certainly have About and Contacts linking to trendmicro.com – but that could be some malware makers idea of faking legitimacy. (Albeit, just how long could they get away with all their traffic going to the real Trend Micro?)
Is “HiChina Zhicheng Technology Ltd.” unambiguously linked to Trend Micro?
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please see the following link https://blog.trendmicro.com/answers-to-your-questions-on-our-mac-apps-store/
The other implication here would seem to involve Apple.
If the app store features delightful wares from “Trend Micro, Inc.”; Trend Micro had better be guilty as sin or someone isn’t doing even a sliver of the diligence they imply in their description of the glorious walled garden and its safety.
here a full list of this chinese fake TrendMicro incorporated:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/developer/trend-micro-incorporated/id486159632?mt=8
HiChina Zhicheng is a domain registrar - they take your money and register a domain into global DNS services. That’s the extent of their involvement in the software right there.
The website drcleaner.com is hosted on AWS infrastructure. Amazon providing the web hosting doesn’t mean Amazon was involved in developing the software, any more than HiChina Zhicheng providing the domain registration means they’re involved with the software.
It’s the real Trend Micro. Here they are on their own blog issuing a sort of semi denial semi confession:
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