The vendor claims the program is voluntary and “totally anonymous.” The role of the program is to help the developer understand its users’ needs and deliver better products and services. The ueipdata.zip file is created and sent to Maxthon servers as part of the company’s User Experience Improvement Program (UEIP). Exatel researchers demonstrated how a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacker could intercept the data as it travels from the client to the Maxthon server in China. While dat.txt is encrypted, experts easily found the key needed to decrypt it, giving them access to the information. This file stores information on the operating system, CPU, ad blocker status, homepage URL, websites visited by the user (including online searches), and installed applications and their version number. Further analysis revealed that ueipdata.zip contains an encrypted file named dat.txt.
Researchers at Fidelis Cybersecurity and Poland-based Exatel recently found that Maxthon regularly sends a file named ueipdata.zip to a server in Beijing, China, via HTTP. In 2013, after the NSA surveillance scandal broke, the company boasted about its focus on privacy and security, and the use of strong encryption. Researchers warn that the harvested data could be highly valuable for malicious actors.ĭeveloped by China-based Maxthon International, the browser is available for all major platforms in more than 50 languages. Security experts have discovered that the Maxthon web browser collects sensitive information and sends it to a server in China.
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