Han Ximin

    ximhan@126.com

    A MAN was detained by Shenzhen police Saturday on suspicions that he wrote a virus that affected more than 1 million phone users across the country over the weekend, police said in a statement yesterday.

    The weekend saw an outbreak of a virus called “XXshenqi.apk” in many provinces. The software, which targets Android phones, could cause leaking of phone users’ personal information in addition to raising text message fees, both without the knowledge of phone users, police said.

    According to police, the victims received a message containing the following link: http://cdn.yyupload.com/down/4279193/XXshenqi.apk — that automatically redirects users to download the XXshenqi software, which can access users’ contacts and send the same message to them. In this way, the virus spreads, police said.

    Li, a 19-year-old freshman studying software engineering at a Hunan Province college, was detained in an apartment in Bao’an District. He came to visit his parents, who were working in Shenzhen.

    He told police that he made the software for fun and to prove himself, but he didn’t expect it to spread so quickly.

    “I deeply regret what I have done to the phone users who were affected by the virus,” Li said during an interview yesterday.