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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| PRC's Lenovo caught pre-installing malicious, hacker-prone software |
| 2015-02-20 |
| (Reuters) - China's Lenovo Group Ltd, the world's largest PC maker, said on Thursday it will no longer pre-install software that cybersecurity experts said was malicious and made devices vulnerable to hacking. Lenovo had come under fire from security researchers who said earlier on Thursday the company pre-installed a virus-like software from a company called Superfish on consumer laptops that hijacked web connections and allowed them to be spied upon. "We have thoroughly investigated this technology and do not find any evidence to substantiate security concerns," a Lenovo spokesman said. Robert Graham, CEO of U.S.-based security research firm Errata Security, said Superfish was malicious software that hijacks and throws open encrypted connections, paving the way for hackers to also commandeer these connections and eavesdrop, in what is known as a man-in-the-middle attack. "This hurts (Lenovo's) reputation," Graham told Reuters. "It demonstrates the deep flaw that the company neither knows nor cares what it bundles on their laptops." Lenovo commanded one-fifth of the global PC market in the third quarter of 2014, according to data research firm IDC. |
| Posted by:Anguper Hupomosing9418 |
| #9 Uh oh, this news is not what the GPLS here in Guam wants to hear, as they have on some of their CP Stations. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2015-02-20 19:37 |
| #8 maybe its time to reverse the flow Unless it's too late |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2015-02-20 19:20 |
| #7 China, maybe its time to reverse the flow of jobs and capital from our greatest existential threat? Curb imports, immigration, information sharing, all over time but reduce the connections? The are not our friends and barely hide their contempt these days. |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2015-02-20 18:49 |
| #6 No more Motorola phones for me. Motorola's phone manufacturing is now owned by Lenovo. |
| Posted by: AuburnTom 2015-02-20 18:37 |
| #5 So if we stop importing computers from China the only folks who will be left doing this sort of thing will be the NSA. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2015-02-20 14:08 |
| #4 Microsoft has since identified Superfish as a Trojan with a severe security risk and has issued an "Definition Update" to the current OS's Windows Defender security software, KB915597, version 1.193.395.0. Re-running Windows Update should install this. Some browsers may then develop problems with the original bad certificate, and will need to be patched by their sponsers (e.g. Firefox). |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2015-02-20 13:59 |
| #3 They're still installing Windows, so they have not corrected the problem. |
| Posted by: KBK 2015-02-20 10:29 |
| #2 Oh, and what else do you think they've installed, perhaps in the firmware? |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2015-02-20 08:40 |
| #1 Huh. Guess the boss can't say my personal laptop is less secure than the company issued Lenovo. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2015-02-20 08:39 |