The main page of the Viet Hong Technology Company Limited. Investigators from Ha Noi's Department of Information and Communications have found that the firm has illegally accessed smartphones to steal private information of users, store it on its server and then sell to customers. — Photo vietnamplus.vn

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — Investigators from Ha Noi's Department of Information and Communications have found that Viet Hong Technology Company Limited has illegally accessed smartphones to take control and steal private information.

The information is stored on its server and is then sold to customers.

The investigators have sent documents on the case to the Investigation Police Section under the Ha Noi Police Department to continue investigating the company's violations.

The company, which was established in 2010, had registered to do business in coding, software production, information technology service providers and other services related to computers.

According to the investigators, Viet Hong provided customers with two softwares installed on smartphones running Android operating system, including Ptracker for individuals and PtrackerERP for enterprises.

Phone users can make use of Ptracker to obtain information on sound, images, videos and locations, as well as information on in/out calls, messages, contact list and accessed websites. Meanwhile, PtrackerERP enables firms to monitor locations, messages and calls history, and accessed websites of their employees. PtrackerERP also supports workers to report and exchange information with their managers.

Customers can download softwares from the websites of the company, send message to receive links or employees can install directly for users. The softwares are invisible on smartphones. Images, record files and videos taken from the smartphones are loaded on its server and are not saved on the smartphones.

Viet Hong had rented a server from Global Data Joint Stock Company and based it at the Vietnam Datacommunication Company.

During the investigation, 670 customers were using softwares. As many as 14,140 accounts were used to install Ptracker, and out of these 7,447 accounts contained information that had never been erased. The data have been saved in the company's server.

The investigators discovered that from September 2013 until the investigation time, Viet Hong had earned over VND900 million (more than US$42,850). — VNS