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U.S. weighs ban on America’s most-popular router, China’s TP-Link

MacDailyNews

Dec 19

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U.S. authorities are investigating whether TP-Link, a Chinese router manufacturer with approximately 65% of the U.S. home and small business router market, poses a national security risk due to links between its devices and cyberattacks. A potential ban on the devices is being considered. TP-Link is also a top seller on Amazon and used by the Defense Department and other federal agencies.

Heather Somerville, Dustin Volz, and Aruna Viswanatha for The Wall Street Journal:
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Investigators at the Commerce, Defense and Justice departments have opened their own probes into the company, and authorities could ban the sale of TP-Link routers in the U.S. next year, according to people familiar with the matter. An office of the Commerce Department has subpoenaed TP-Link, some of the people said.
Action against the company would likely fall to the incoming Trump administration, which has signaled an aggressive approach to China.
An analysis from Microsoft published in October found that a Chinese hacking entity maintains a large network of compromised network devices mostly comprising thousands of TP-Link routers. The network has been used by numerous Chinese actors to launch cyberattacks. These actors have gone after Western targets including think tanks, government organizations, nongovernment organizations and Defense Department suppliers.
TP-Link routers are routinely shipped to customers with security flaws, which the company often fails to address, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company climbed from around 20% of the U.S. market for home and small-business routers in 2019 to around 65% this year. It took an additional 5% of the market in just the third quarter of this year, according to industry data.
TP-Link has also joined with more than 300 internet providers in the U.S. to be the router that is mailed to new homes that sign up for their services. Federal contracting documents show TP-Link routers supply everything from NASA to the Defense Department and Drug Enforcement Administration, and the routers are sold at online military exchanges.

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MacDailyNews Take: Compromised routers would be a very nice vector for any nefarious activity. A word to the wise: Don’t install CCP trojan horses into your networks.

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