Google and Japan police shut Chinese firm's device backdoor

Google and Japan's National Police Agency have disabled a backdoor that a Chinese company built into internet-connected devices, an operation that The Japan Times reported affected more than 1.3 million devices.

The backdoor gave the company a way into the devices and pulled them into a botnet, according to the newspaper, which published its account on 5 November. The report did not name the company. Neither Google nor the NPA has released details of how the access was closed, or how long it had been open.

A botnet is a collection of compromised machines that can be instructed remotely, usually without their owners' knowledge. Operators use such networks to flood websites with traffic, send bulk messages or conceal other attacks among ordinary household equipment. Home routers and smart cameras that stay online around the clock are common recruits.

The NPA is Japan's national police agency, which investigates cybercrime alongside other criminal cases. Google is the US technology company whose services include search and the Android mobile operating system.

The Japan Times account leaves several questions open. It did not say which makes or models of device were affected, which countries the 1.3 million devices were in, or how the backdoor was installed. It did not say whether anyone had been arrested, charged or publicly identified.

The 1.3 million figure was given as the number of devices affected by the backdoor and the botnet, not as the number of owners who noticed anything wrong. Devices recruited into botnets usually keep working normally while they are being used.