We’ve been watching the unfolding train wreck that is Adobe Flash for the last week or so.  It has become apparent that Flash is simply too dangerous to allow it to run on your computer.  At this point, we strongly recommend that you uninstall Flash on your computer.  For more information, see the US CERT notice that came out yesterday.

The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) issued a warning on February 20th regarding a problem with certain Lenovo consumer notebooks that could be compromised by Superfish software.  In plain English, the problem is that the software installs s security certificate that would allow spoofing of connections to secure websites, such as banks.

Lenovo has issued a statement indicating that it has stopped installing the software and issued instructions on how to remove it.

The problem apparently exists only on certain consumer notebooks.  Lenovo says that it did NOT install the software on its Thinkpad line of business notebooks, no on its desktops or tablets.

Lenovo originally decided to install Superfish on its consumer notebooks as part of the software packages that it and other brand name computer manufacturers install in exchange for financial consideration from the software manufacturers.  As the US-CERT notice indicates, simply removing the junk that comes with a typical new computer does not necessarily clean up the system.

One of the benefits of purchasing a custom built system from a company like Gulfcoast Networking is that we do NOT install all the “free trials” and other software that comes with new brand name systems.  We install the software you want and nothing more.

If you have a Lenovo consumer notebook, we encourage you to check to see if it has Superfish installed.

Rob Marlowe, Senior Geek