It seems some unhappy purchasers of Lenovo laptops are looking for justice after learning that Lenovo had preoloaded dangerous malware onto their products. A class action lawsuit has been filed against Lenovo and Superfish, with the hopes of getting compensation for damages caused by the Superfish malware that was installed on wide variety of Lenovo laptops. Superfish has been preloaded onto laptops at least as far back as mid 2014, so there are a lot of customers who may be eligible to jump in on this lawsuit.
Both companies are accused of fraudulent business practices by not revealing the nature of the preloaded software before the laptops were purchased. Another claim in the lawsuit is that Lenovo and Superfish were invading their users privacy by tracking their browsing habits. This is a claim which has previously been denied. In an official statement by Lenovo, it was claimed that Superfish does not track or record any data or browsing habits of its users.
Plaintiff Jessica Bennett also claims that her laptop was damaged as a result of Superfish malware. The Superfish malware drew the ire of security and privacy experts when it was revealed to create its own self signed certificate authority, leaving computers running Superfish vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks. The laptop might then be considered "damaged" by Superfish, since it has been put into a state where it can easily be taken advantage of by hackers.
Since the Superfish story originally broke, Lenovo has apologized for shipping laptops with Superfish already installed, and have discontinued preloaded it onto laptops as of January 2015. Their support website even offers step by step instructions on how to remove Superfish. For some this is too little, too late. Lenovo put a large number of its customers at risk by its actions, and they feel they deserve compensation.
Do you think there are legitimate grounds for a lawsuit against Lenovo and Superfish over this? Leave your comments below.
