Saw this on reddit today. Source article
Made me wonder if anyone has experienced this in Australia or if it was restricted to the US.
Bloatware on new devices has always been frustrating, but dodgy MITM certificates, well…
Lenovo Installing Adware on New Devices
Peace Maker on 20/02/2015 - 07:40
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They business machines (Think-branded) aren't affected. On the other hand the IdeaPads (like the Y50 one I've posted might be affected, as someone on Hacker News reported it. Lenovo claimed that they are no longer activating Superfish, the damage is done and I think they'll lose a lot of trust and customers because of this incident.
“Superfish may have appeared on these models:
G Series: G410, G510, G710, G40-70, G50-70, G40-30, G50-30, G40-45, G50-45
U Series: U330P, U430P, U330Touch, U430Touch, U530Touch
Y Series: Y430P, Y40-70, Y50-70
Z Series: Z40-75, Z50-75, Z40-70, Z50-70
S Series: S310, S410, S40-70, S415, S415Touch, S20-30, S20-30Touch
Flex Series: Flex2 14D, Flex2 15D, Flex2 14, Flex2 15, Flex2 14(BTM), Flex2 15(BTM), Flex 10
MIIX Series: MIIX2-8, MIIX2-10, MIIX2-11
YOGA Series: YOGA2Pro-13, YOGA2-13, YOGA2-11BTM, YOGA2-11HSW
E Series: E10-30”Removal instructions: http://securitygladiators.com/2015/02/19/remove-lenovo-adwar…
Lenovo now also has its own Superfish removal utility with source code hosted on GitHub.
Its not just superfish. Microsoft models aside, the only safe Windows is one you have installed yourself. I always nuke from orbit and reinstall, preferably on an SSD. Now I feel justified.
Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool detected Superfish adware/malware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish on my Z50-70 laptop bought from this deal https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/206012 2 months ago so everybody that bought this and similar Lenovo laptops up to/around that time and who have not yet, might want to be wary and check their security http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/threat/encyclopedia/entry.aspx?name=Program%3aWin32%2fCompromisedCert.
I had only had a chance to turn my on to use it a few times and to update to Windows 10 while being slack ordering and waiting for a US keyboard to replace the french one.
The scary bit of that is, it's apparently really easy to crack it, making users vulnerable. Little hopes I had on ThinkPads and Lenovo as a company has disappeared after this news (though I get the feeling that Lenovo might not be the only company who does this).