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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, Insightful) by c0lo on Saturday February 21 2015, @11:08PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 21 2015, @11:08PM (#147918) Journal

    Defund Homeland Security, tell its members to self-deport

    As aliens as they seem, the great majority of them - if not all - are US citizens, thus deportation [findlaw.com] is not possible.

    As for exporting them or their by-product [wikipedia.org], we'd rather prefer that you actually manage them locally instead of polluting other places.

    Signed: the rest of the world

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Sunday February 22 2015, @04:15AM

    by GungnirSniper (1671) on Sunday February 22 2015, @04:15AM (#147981) Journal

    Can't we exile them to Botany Bay?

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 22 2015, @07:40AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 22 2015, @07:40AM (#148020) Journal

      Prime real-estate zone (over half-a-mil for a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 71sqm [realestate.com.au] apartment)? Are you sure you want to punish them?
      Or did you have the equiv of a golden parachute in mind, for their services?

      No, mate, no. Better put them in road maintenance, surely you have lot of roads that need their pot-holes filled

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford