In recent years, the security of electronics has increasingly been mentioned in connection with hacker attacks, espionage, and the like. And although we usually talk about smartphones,onecomputers, tablets or laptops, in the USA, the security of home internet routers, which almost every one of us has at home, is now starting to be intensively addressed. ProAccording to American authorities, models from the popular Chinese manufacturer TP-Link may be problematic.
Routers from TP-Link hold a mere 65% share of the US router market, largely because ISPs themselves supply them in bulk to their customers as a default solution. The catch, however, is that American authorities have become suspicious that this Chinese manufacturer may be somehow related to cyber attacks that target these routers, among other things. If the investigation shows that this is indeed the case, TP-Link routers should stop being sold in the US - at least according to people familiar with the matter.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) sources, who first reported the news, point out that TP-Link has a number of things going wrong. For example, its routers are said to suffer from a number of security flaws that the company is either slow to fix or unable to fix at all. What's more, according to the WSJ, the routers could even be used as a botnet to carry out cyberattacks on American organizations, which could be an extremely serious problem. According to documents that are freely available online, TP-Link routers are used in the US by everything from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to Minithe Ministry of Defense or institutions fighting drug trafficking. If the authorities' concerns are confirmed, this could mean a halt to sales in the US for TP-Link and a major router shakeup in the US, as it is clear that the authorities would immediately start replacing dangerous routers with safe ones after confirming their dangerousness.
If you are interested in TP-Link's statement, its press spokesperson refuted the allegations and stated that the company's products are not sold below cost in an effort to get them to as many people as possible, and thus the company does not violate any other laws. However, we will still have to wait for the results of the investigation, because everything is still at the very beginning.
