UK Intelligence Services ‘Ban’ Lenovo

[PeterCriss]

UK Intelligence Services ‘Ban’ Lenovo, Netizen Reactions

by Beth on Saturday, August 3, 2013

​

​

​

When the UK newspaper The Independent reported on July 29 that the UK intelligence services had placed a ban on the use of Lenovo PCs due to a backdoor hacking chip ahving been built into the machines, leaving them vulnerable to hacking, it made global news.

The article appeared in the Japanese media a few days later, and has steadily gained netizen comments ever since. A vast majority of the comments are from concerned Lenovo users, while other commenters relate the news to a general dislike of China.

While UK intelligence services refuse to comment on the issue, the reaction of Japanese netizens is bound to be of concern to Lenovo, given that the company has been carrying out an aggressive marketing strategy in Japan, with the aim of getting a 30% market share over the next few years, thus making Japan a key market.

From Tokyo Shimbun:
UK Intelligence Organisations: “Do not use” Chinese-Made Lenovo PCs After Discovery That They Are Engineered To Be Hacked

It has been revealed that UK intelligence organisations have banned the use of Chinese-made Lenovo computers. Lenovo is the largest computer manufacturer in the world. The story was reported on July 30, by the UK newspaper The Independent.

When MI5 and GCHQ investigated Lenovo products, they discovered that there was engineering in place that would allow external control of data held on the computer. Scientists expressed concerns over the fact that secret “back-door” chips, which bypass conventional security protection, had been installed in the machines at the time of manufacture.

GCHQ declined to comment on the story, but apparently a notice banning the machines had been issued by intelligence organisations in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand from the mid-naughties.

Lenovo, which bought out IBM computers in 2005, has its largest shareholder as the Chinese state organisation, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Lenovo also commented to The Independent that, “Our products have been continually certified as reliable and secure by our customers”.

Regarding the Chinese IT industry, last year the Australian government rejected a bid from Huawei Technologies, which has links with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, for high speed communication network enterprises, and this was criticised by the Chinese government.