Shein Shopping App Glitch Copies Android Clipboard Contents

A version of the Shein shopping application in the Google Play store with more than 100 million downloads was unnecessarily accessing Android-device clipboard contents, creating a potential security threat, according to Microsoft.

The software giant said in a blog post from Microsoft Threat Intelligence that it asked Shein to remove the feature from its Android app that accessed user clipboards, and the company complied. However, users need to update their apps to be free from danger. 

From passwords to account numbers, and auto-fill information of all kinds, device clipboards can contain a treasure trove of sensitive data.

"Microsoft discovered that an old version of the Shein Android application periodically read the contents of the Android device clipboard and, if a particular pattern was present, sent the contents of the clipboard to a remote server," the Microsoft blog post said. "While we are not specifically aware of any malicious intent behind the behavior, we assessed that this behavior was not necessary for users to perform their tasks on the app."