Peter Hortensius, the chief technology officer of computer manufacturer Lenovo, has sent out an open letter that apologizes for the inclusion of the Superfish adware into shipped computers by the company.
The Superfish adware functioned like malware, as it severely compromised the security systems of the affected computers.
In the open letter, Hortensius promised that Lenovo will no longer be pre-installing the Superfish adware into computers that the company will release in the future.
The Lenovo CTO also pointed out that the company has released an automated tool for the removal of the Superfish adware. In addition, Lenovo has been working with antivirus teams from Microsoft, Symantec and McAfee to ensure that the tools that the companies are sending out are able to easily remove Superfish from affected systems.
More importantly, Hortensius added that Lenovo is currently working on a plan to ensure that the company will no longer pre-install similarly suspicious software into computers that the company ships for selling in the future.
The Superfish adware supposedly helps users in the visual identification of products to make shopping easier. However, what it actually did was superimpose unwanted advertisements on the websites that users visit. In the process, the adware compromised the security of the user's systems by passing important security protocols that kept the user safe from cyberattacks. Superfish, in essence, opened up the user's computer to hackers that could then monitor and extract information from online activity such as banking transactions.
Lenovo has stopped pre-installing the software in its computers last month, and has shut down the server connections that enable Superfish to operate. However, the damage has been done, and unsurprisingly, Lenovo is now facing a lawsuit related to the adware.
The lawsuit, filed in a district court in California, narrates the experience of Jessica Bennett, who purchased a Lenovo Yoga 2 laptop late last year.
Bennett quickly noticed the unwanted pop-up advertisements appearing on a blog that she writes for, realizing that the problem was with her laptop after seeing the same problem appear when she visited a well-known website.
The lawsuit is seeking to be elevated to class-action status, which will allow more owners of Lenovo laptops to join the case. While Lenovo said that Superfish was only installed on computers that were sold between September 2014 and December 2014, the lawsuit is looking to include all Lenovo PC buyers from as far back as January 2012.
The lawsuit claims that Lenovo violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act and the Federal Wiretap Act, among others.
