Last week, Lenovo was exposed as having been secretly pre-loading adware on to its devices. But far worse than this was the method that the company had used to install the software onto its PCs. More than just a nuisance, the "Superfish" software was discovered to have fundamentally compromised the security of every device on which Lenovo had installed it.
The company said this week that it was determined to "make the Superfish situation better" - but that isn"t going to stop the lawyers from making a few bucks from Lenovo"s mess. Indeed, as BGR reports, Florida law firm Wites & Kapetan is now investigating the issue with a view towards developing a class action lawsuit against Lenovo.
The firm says that it wants to hear from people who "have an impacted Lenovo laptop or PC or have information about this issue", and lists the systems affected:
E-Series:
E10-30Flex-Series:
Flex2 14, Flex2 15, Flex2 14D, Flex2 15D, Flex2 Pro, Flex 10G-Series:
G410, G510, G710, G40-30, G40-45, G40-70, G40-80, G50-50, G50-45, G50-70, G50-80, G50-80TouchLenovo Edge 15
Miix-Series:
Miix2 – 8, Miix2 – 10, Miix2 – 11, Miix 3 – 1030S-Series:
S310, S410, S415, S415 Touch, S435, S20-30, S20-30 Touch, S40-70U-Series:
U330P, U430P, U330 Touch, U430 Touch, U540 TouchY-Series:
Y430P, Y40-70, Y40-80, Y50-70, Y70-70Yoga-Series:
Yoga2-11, Yoga2-13, Yoga2Pro-13, Yoga3 ProZ-Series:
Z40-70, Z40-75, Z50-70, Z50-75, Z70-80
Lenovo"s week has been getting steadily worse - yesterday, the company"s site was hacked, apparently by well-known hacking group Lizard Squad. If that wasn"t enough, Lenovo"s chief technology officer, Peter Hortensius, somehow managed to make the company appear even more incompetent, in an interview with The New York Times.
In it, Hortensius claimed that Lenovo had wanted "to improve our consumer experience" and make things better for its customers, by inserting more ads. But it"s this statement that really raises an eyebrow: "Obviously, in retrospect, if we had known what that meant in terms of how it was implemented, we would never have done it."
That appears to be a pretty open - and somewhat startling - admission by Lenovo"s CTO that neither he nor his staff had the technical knowledge that they needed to inform their decision to add Superfish to their systems. In the wake of such comments, it"s hardly surprising that the company now faces possible legal action.
Source: Wites & Kapetan PA via BGR