Lenovo in February admitted to preloading Superfish on some consumer notebooks, and now the company has taken steps so the dangerous adware doesn’t reappear when users reinstall Windows.

The China-based company is shipping free recovery media for affected customers that will contain an image of the Windows OS and preloaded software, but not Superfish. With the recovery media, users will be able reinstall Windows on laptops and not worry about Superfish showing up again.

Lenovo was hit with criticism and lawsuits after admitting it “messed up” by preloading Superfish on laptops. The adware plugs product recommendations into search results, but also could leave computers vulnerable to malicious attacks by hijacking SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) connections and opening major security holes.

A removal tool was provided to remove Superfish from affected laptops. The tool, however, did not remove Superfish from a backup image on PCs. Affected PCs have a recovery partition that stores a backup image of the OS and the preloaded software, including Superfish, with which the laptop shipped. So there is a danger of Superfish reappearing on laptops if a user reinstalls the OS from the recovery partition on the PC. It is difficult to make changes in the recovery partition.

Read the Full Article: Source – PC World
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2915292/lenovo-ships-free-os-recovery-media-for-superfishaffected-laptops.html

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