Wow. Kudos to Andrei Frumusanu for his vigilance and investigative works here. For those who don't remember the article touches upon the earlier discoveries and reporting of cheating by some very major makers of mobile devices. In this new case there is question that this is being done by and included by the chipmaker placed onto the phones of various OEMs. In this case the chip maker noticed is MediaTek. The tweaks cover a huge range of benchmarks and in some cases go so far as to target the copy of the benchmark used by editorial reviewers. Further, upon discovery and inquiries opened, it would appear said chipmaker simply moved their benchmark cheats to elsewhere but they remain. Their statement in response is along the lines: everyone does it, normal, nothing to see here. Some will consider it shockingly blatant, the author seems to think so, while for others this might come as no surprise at all.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/15703/mobile-benchmark-cheating-mediatek