Lenovo, a Computer Brand, Blamed for Shipping Laptops with Adware

Money.cnn.com reported on 19th February, 2015 stating that computer brand Lenovo has been shipping laptops which are pre-installed with malware causing these laptops more vulnerable to hackers and all have been done just for the sake of serving them advertisements.

Superfish, a company, made the software which is essentially an Internet browser add-on injecting ads into websites which they visit.

The add-on takes space in the Lenovo computer of the user and it is dangerous because it weakens the basic security protocols of the computer.

It happens because it damages a widely-used system of official website certificates. For example, it makes very difficult for the user's computer to recognize a fake website of a bank.

Customers began noticing this on their Lenovo computers in mid-2014.

Lenovo recently confessed the infection after facing vicious reactions of customers and security experts of computers.

For any comment, Selfish could not be contacted. Representatives of Lenovo said that they have acted upon the issue and confirmed that the tricky application was not found on all computers of users.

SecurityWeek published a report on 19th February, 2015 quoting Lenovo as saying "We detached Superfish from the new consumer systems during January 2015 and Superfish simultaneously disabled existing Lenovo machines in the market for deactivating Superfish. Superfish was preloaded only on limited number of models and hence Lenovo is comprehensively investigating the matter and any new problems raised due to Superfish."

SecurityWeek published a report on 19th February, 2015 quoting a noting of Mike Shaver, Engineering Director of Facebook, as "There are some users who reported in December which Superfish app had affected the usage of certificates of smart card.

Yonathan Klijnsma, IT Researcher of Fox, has managed to remove the private key of the Superfish certificate authority (CA) by reversing the engineering of the application and to try out passwords for the private key. SecurityWeek published news on 19th February, 2015 quoting the expert as saying "the password is related to the name which is internally used by Lenovo for Superfish."

You might have to reinstall a new fresh operating system to be secured completely. Security experts suggested that customers of Lenovo have already paid for Windows in their laptops and so they have to spend another $120 for a copy of Windows 8.1.

» SPAMfighter News - 2/27/2015