Lenovo Launches Investigation Into Embarrassing Lizard Squad Hack
Lenovo said it's currently investigating a cyberattack that took the company's website down for several hours earlier this week, though it may not have to look very far. The ornery hacking group known as Lizard Squad is claiming responsibility for the security breach, purportedly as punishment for the recent Superfish scandal.
Let's backtrack a quick moment. Lenovo came under fire earlier this month when it was discovered that a piece of bundled software on consumer laptops and desktops was duping security certificates in order to display ads. Called Superfish, the software is a visual search program that would otherwise be a benign, if not annoying piece of adware, except that it's method of serving ads left users susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks.
Even worse, users complained that the software would install even if they declined it during first boot, and attempts to uninstall Superfish would leave behind a root certificate. Lenovo ended up apologizing for the incident and also released an automatic software tool to remove Superfish completely, root certificate and all.
Playing the part of judge, jury, and executioner, Lizard Squad apparently decided that Lenovo deserved to be hacked.
"We are reviewing our network security and we will take further appropriate steps to bolster our site and to protect the integrity of our users' information and experience," Lenovo said.
According to KrebsonSecurity, the attack on Lenovo as well as one on Google's Vietnam domain that was also performed by Lizard Squad both were made possible by seizing control over Webnic.cc, the Malaysian registrar that serves both domains and 600,000 others.
In the attack on Lenovo, the Lizard Squad changed the HTML source code to read, "the new and improved rebranded Lenovo website featuring Ryan King and Rory Andrew Godfrey." King and Godfrey used to be part of the now defunct Hack the Planet collective and have since been working to expose Lizard Squad.
It's not yet known how deep Lizard Squad was able to penetrate Lenovo's website and what data it might have stolen, though the organization has said it's planning a data dump for a later time.
Let's backtrack a quick moment. Lenovo came under fire earlier this month when it was discovered that a piece of bundled software on consumer laptops and desktops was duping security certificates in order to display ads. Called Superfish, the software is a visual search program that would otherwise be a benign, if not annoying piece of adware, except that it's method of serving ads left users susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks.
Even worse, users complained that the software would install even if they declined it during first boot, and attempts to uninstall Superfish would leave behind a root certificate. Lenovo ended up apologizing for the incident and also released an automatic software tool to remove Superfish completely, root certificate and all.
Playing the part of judge, jury, and executioner, Lizard Squad apparently decided that Lenovo deserved to be hacked.
"We are reviewing our network security and we will take further appropriate steps to bolster our site and to protect the integrity of our users' information and experience," Lenovo said.
According to KrebsonSecurity, the attack on Lenovo as well as one on Google's Vietnam domain that was also performed by Lizard Squad both were made possible by seizing control over Webnic.cc, the Malaysian registrar that serves both domains and 600,000 others.
In the attack on Lenovo, the Lizard Squad changed the HTML source code to read, "the new and improved rebranded Lenovo website featuring Ryan King and Rory Andrew Godfrey." King and Godfrey used to be part of the now defunct Hack the Planet collective and have since been working to expose Lizard Squad.
It's not yet known how deep Lizard Squad was able to penetrate Lenovo's website and what data it might have stolen, though the organization has said it's planning a data dump for a later time.
