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Huawei Laptop 'Backdoor' Flaw Raises Concerns (bbc.com)

A flaw in Huawei Matebook laptops, found by Microsoft researchers, could have been used to take control of machines. From a report: The "sophisticated flaw" had probably been introduced at the manufacturing stage, one expert told BBC News. Huawei is under increasing scrutiny around the world over how closely it is tied to the Chinese government. The company, which denies any collusion with Beijing, corrected the flaw after it was notified about it in January. Prof Alan Woodward, a computer security expert based at Surrey University, told BBC News the flaw had the hallmarks of a "backdoor" created by the US's National Security Agency to spy on the computers of targets. That tool was leaked online and has been used by a wide variety of hackers, including those who are state-sponsored and criminal gangs. "It was introduced at the manufacture stage but the path by which it came to be there is unknown and the fact that it looks like an exploit that is linked to the NSA doesn't mean anything," Prof Woodward said.

2 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Why is anyone buying anything from this company? by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seriously, WHY? Seems clear as day to me that everything they're producing is compromised in one way or another.

  2. clarification and link to the security advisory by nimbius · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Pathetic that slashdot has gotten to this point, but the original article has no link to any meaningful information.
    in summary:

    - this is an exploit in a windows program written by huawei called pcmanager.
    - Dell, HP, and even Lenovo have had security bugs in their software as well. The fact that this is a huawei bug means every news outlet gets to ratched up the terror factor for clicks.
    - googling the name Alan Woodward returns the exact same article title at nearly 2 dozen news sites, but nothing meaningful about the guy outside of his singular report.
    https://www.huawei.com/en/psir...

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.