Private data could be collected from thousands of Android and iOS apps,according to security researchers. The issue revolves around Yandex, the leading search engine in Russia, and how this data might be available to Russia state agencies. In addition to being a search portal, Yandex also makes an SDK called AppMetrica, which does app usage analytics and marketing and is similar to Google’s Firebase. The SDK has been incorporated into more than 52,000 different apps, including games and messaging apps.

In this post for Avast’s blog, I provide details about the problems with this SDK and things to watch out for when you download your next app.