Lenovo Accused Of Using ‘Rootkit-Like’ Methods To Sneak Software Onto Clean Windows Installs

JaredBusch

Lenovo is at it again...

http://hothardware.com/news/lenovo-accused-of-using-rootkit-to-sneak-its-software-onto-clean-windows-installs

scottalanmiller

Some mention of it in this thread about Lenovo's new laptops:
http://mangolassi.it/topic/5720/lenovo-ushers-in-a-new-era-of-mobile-workstation-power-and-performance-with-lenovo-thinkpad-p50-and-p70

scottalanmiller

It is pretty clear now that this is standard behaviour at Lenovo. It's not even been a year since they were caught hijacking network data from customer devices and they are so brazen and think so little of their customers that they feel that they essentially do a firmware level malware deployment system and get away with it! In their defense, I suppose that anyone buying Lenovo gear still after the Superfish episode will let them do anything and doesn't care if they are compromised. If Superfish didn't convince people to be terrified of Lenovo, this certainly is not going to.

scottalanmiller

A few threads going on about this elsewhere as well: http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1122492-lenovo-installing-software-on-boot

scottalanmiller

http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1121374-lenovo-laptops-now-come-with-a-free-rootkit

nadnerB

Sigh
They clearly are never going to learn.

scottalanmiller

@nadnerB said:

Sigh
They clearly are never going to learn.

They never will unless their customers (or former customers) make them learn.

nadnerB

More coverage:

scottalanmiller

Hopefully we will get lucky and there will be enough exposure (and memory) now that two of the biggest technology integrity blunders have come from the same vendor so close together that maybe this one will not be forgotten and swept under the rug as quickly as Superfish was.

nadnerB

Aaaaaannnndddd they're back in the news:
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2984889/windows-pcs/lenovo-collects-usage-data-on-thinkpad-thinkcentre-and-thinkstation-pcs.html

JaredBusch

@nadnerB said:

Aaaaaannnndddd they're back in the news:
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2984889/windows-pcs/lenovo-collects-usage-data-on-thinkpad-thinkcentre-and-thinkstation-pcs.html

I like this summary at the end of that article.. Sums it up well. We pretty much expect this behavior from everyone. But Lenovo already shot themselves on this.

Had this been any other PC vendor, this might be a triviality. Certainly Microsoft is doing far more tracking in Windows 10.
But trust is the price Lenovo pays for their previous behavior. Those of that recall the company's initial reaction to Superfish, dismissing it out of hand, have a hard time trusting them again.

Dashrender

Yeah I was wondering how he was going to handle that ALL manufacturers today are pretty much guaranteed to be doing some sort of tracking. Granted that tracking is so they can make the product better.

The author also didn't mention if they did a fresh install of Windows when they received the machine - to me that was his first downfall, but the fact that Lenovo has already shot itself in the foot, this doesn't help.