The Wall Street Journal reports that US authorities have begun investigating whether routers by manufacturer TP-Link pose a threat to national security and whether a ban should be imposed on them.
The US Departments of Commerce, Defense, and Justice have all launched their own investigations into TP-Link, whose ubiquitous routers are among the top sellers on Amazon and have made their way into roughly 65 percent of US homes and small businesses. TP-Link devices are also used by the Department of Defense and other government agencies.
What’s so bad about TP-Link routers? Well, they come with security flaws and have been linked to cyberattacks in the past. For example, thousands of TP-Link routers were used in a hacker attack against Microsoft’s Azure cloud service early last month. The hackers behind the attack are believed to have links to the Chinese government. If US authorities instate a ban, it could happen as early as next year.
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