The Superfish adware has given Lenovo a lot of hard work since the laptops that have it pre-installed have left the shops towards the use of customers. All tech forums have exploded with arguments and important problems related to Superfish, and Lenovo took rapid measures in order to please everyone that prefers this company rather than others.
The issue with Superfish has been gradually identified and has become more and more dangerous as researchers have tested the adware and what it can do to the personal data of a normal user. The monitoring of secure connections and the fact that a third-party as was being interpolated into all searches, the Google ones and any other searches on various engines, were critical and sensitive problems that needed drastic solutions as soon as possible.
Microsoft and McAfee, Lenovo’s two antivirus partners have been working a great deal of time in finding a way to remove the adware or at least a way that prevents it from working. Nicknamed “the crapware”, Superfish helped hackers read encrypted websites or redirect them to other websites in ways that are not known for users in general. When the agency told the media that the system will be vulnerable as long as the software exists, specialists had to find a final solution to the problem.
“Systems that came with the software already installed will continue to be vulnerable until corrective actions have been taken.”
One of the main concerns that has been raised among the users of Lenovo was related to the fact that websites of banks were able to be entered with unreal names and passwords, as Robert Graham, CEO of Atlanta-based Errata Security has proved in one of his experiments. With the help of a Raspberry Pi 2, a cheap minicomputer and a micro SD card, he proved that he can log into the Bank of America’s website in these unnatural terms. Unfortunately, hackers have tried to use the same techniques in order to have access to accounts.
As a result to working together for the cause, Lenovo has finally released the removal tool for Superfish. It can be downloaded online for free, on the official website of the company. Fortunately, after the installation, the adware will be forever removed from the user’s laptop. The link to the tool is the following:
http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/superfish_uninstall
Being an official release by Lenovo, the removal tool has a public license and it is open to be analyzed by critics and experts of all kind and at any time. The source code incorporated in the tool has been placed on the website of Github, which is the main developer that is aware of the subject.
Image Source: Windows Central
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