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posted by martyb on Saturday February 21 2015, @03:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the fishing-for-answers dept.

Reuters reports that the US Department of Homeland Security has advised Lenovo customers to remove "Superfish" software from their computers. According to an alert released through its National Cyber Awareness System, the software makes users vulnerable to SSL spoofing and could allow a remote attacker to read encrypted web browser traffic, spoof websites, and perform other attacks on Lenovo PCs with the software installed.

Lenovo inititally said it stopped shipping the software because of complaints about features, not a security vulnerability. "We have thoroughly investigated this technology and do not find any evidence to substantiate security concerns," the company said in a statement to Reuters early on Thursday. On Friday, Lenovo spokesman Brion Tingler said the company's initial findings were flawed and that it was now advising customers to remove the software and providing instructions for uninstalling "Superfish". "We should have known about this sooner," Tingler said in an email. "And if we could go back, we never would have installed this software on our machines. But we can't, so we are dealing with this head on."

[Editor's Note: For background information on this threat, Ars Technica has coverage here, here, here, and here.]

 
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Saturday February 21 2015, @08:19PM

    by frojack (1554) on Saturday February 21 2015, @08:19PM (#147876) Journal

    The actual name is usually a Recovery Partition.
    http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/laptop/3462995/factory-reset-laptop/ [pcadvisor.co.uk]

    See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovery_disc#Recovery_partitions [wikipedia.org]

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  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday February 22 2015, @06:19AM

    by anubi (2828) on Sunday February 22 2015, @06:19AM (#148005) Journal

    Frojack... I followed your link and found this text which I found rather troubling...

    In general this will work for Windows 7 and previous versions but Windows 8 laptops will typically have a recovery application which is launched from within Windows so check your app menu.

    Ummm, I probably need that recovery disk because Windows won't work.

    Right now, I am using "Clonezilla", with one of those Western Digital "Element" USB drives It seems to work, albeit I have never had to restore from it. Anyone here had any experience with it?

    Admittedly I have about as much trust in my computer as I have in a whore. She's beautiful, but I can't trust her. I am always wondering what she is doing behind my back. I am afraid to leave her unsupervised, because at the weirdest times her CPU and memory use max out and I have no idea whose plans she is carrying out... all I can do is reboot her and hope she forgets what she was doing. I read daily of all of her really bad boyfriends on the 'net who are always calling her up to coax her to screw me up for them. Seems the only way to keep them from calling her is to pull the RJ45. It really surprises me businesses tolerate this kind of crap in their machines.

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    • (Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Sunday February 22 2015, @09:50AM

      by TheRaven (270) on Sunday February 22 2015, @09:50AM (#148049) Journal

      Ummm, I probably need that recovery disk because Windows won't work.

      The Windows bootloader will automatically boot from the recovery partition if Windows fails to boot a couple of times. It's also there as an option in the boot menu (not sure if you need to hold a key to make this appear).

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