Lenovo is the Chinese multinational tech company and it is installing the spying software on its laptops. The company is providing all these laptops and some of the handsets come with the pre-installed some default software from the very initial stage. It is essential software but there are some useless crapware, which is installed for the financial or corporate reasons. Lenovo used this technique for its own users to spy the data for their financial advantages.
Hidden Lenovo Spyware Program
Michael Horowitz is the writer at the ComputerWorld and he bought the flagship laptop of Lenovo, ThinkPad this year and he started carrying out different tasks through task scheduler database. He also found the task, which was known as Lenovo Customer Feedback Program 64 and it ran on the daily basis. There were some other files found in the folders of the task and they are pointed to Omniture, which is an online marketing and web analytics firm.
Horowitz said that he did not sign any agreement with Lenovo and gave the authority to the company to use his PC data, when he set up his PC. He also did not notify such a data or software. He revealed the documents to mention the data, which was being taken as ‘non-personal and non-identifying information’. Then the official statement of Lenovo came on the surface claiming that they collected non personal and identifiable statistical usage data to track any single device or customer.
The company has poor track record in ensuring the privacy of their customers and it was hard for the customers to trust on them. Lenovo is the largest PC maker in the world and this company was caught red handed in spying the information of its own users for the third time.
The Superfish Scandal
Lenovo was found pre-loading the adware software in early 2015, which they called ‘Superfish’ and loaded it on their laptops. This software was used to change the search results on the web browser and show the different ads which they would see there.
The chief technology officer of Lenovo, Peter Hortensius said that they were messed up badly and it was exposed that their Superfish was hugely flawed. It showed the critical user data including banking transaction, emails, passwords, instant messages for attackers. The attackers used this flaw as man-in-the-middle attack to spy on the users on internet traffic and they can also infiltrate their computers.
BIOS Rootkit
The scandal of Superfish was appeared in the headlines and Lenovo was caught red handed in stealing the software of its users. The Chinese company was using the hidden Windows feature for the installation of un-removable and unwanted rootkit Software on different Lenovo laptop and desktop systems, which they sold.
Lenovo has developed its ‘Lenovo Service Engine’ (LSE) and it is added with the piece of code, which are inserted in the firmware. The company was responsible to ensure that users cannot uninstall the software, which Lenovo installed in it. If any user did this or he reinstalled the Windows, then LSE automatically download and install the software of Lenovo during boot time. They can also survive full system wipe and reinstall.
How to remove Lenovo Spyware?
It is easy to remove this software but it was hard to remove the software like Rootkit and Superfish. It will take few minutes and the users can remove this software easily if the users want to keep intact their privacy.
- Users can download TaskSchedulerView (32-bit or 64-bit, depending on your computer)
- You can search your Lenovo computer for Lenovo Customer Feedback Program 64.
- You can disable Lenovo Customer Feedback Program 64 daily task from running.
- You can also rename folder of Lenovo to anything else in “C:\Program Files (x86)\Lenovo”.
What Can Consumers Do Against this Breach of Privacy?
When we are finishing this piece of information, it is necessary to provide information to the consumers that they have power to ensure that any high profile company does not get involve in privacy of the information. The company, Lenovo has to change its policy and it does not provide the products by using the wallets of its users. As and when it does not change its policy, it will not win the trust and confidence of its users.
