Lenovo banned from supplying western intelligence services
Lenovo has been banned from supplying hardware to the networks of the intelligence and defence services of the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, according to a report.
The news was exposed in an investigation by the Australian Financial Review (AFR) published over the weekend, which found that the hardware maker is on a security blacklist kept by the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, known collectively as the Five Eyes.
The AFR said in its review that the ban was introduced in the mid-2000s after intensive testing of Lenovo equipment, which allegedly documented "backdoor" hardware and "firmware" vulnerabilities in the firm's chips. The vulnerabilities were thought to enable foreign intelligence services to access the machines without the user's knowledge.
