Lenovo's website was taken down by hackers apparently unhappy with the company's involvement with preloaded adware.
Lenovo's security headaches continued Wednesday as the PC maker's website fell victim to a cyberattack, just days after the PC maker apologized for preloading software on some of its PCs that leaves them vulnerable to malware attacks.
Instead of the typical introduction to the company's products, the website displayed a message Wednesday afternoon indicating the site was down for maintenance. Users attempting to visit the site earlier in the afternoon were treated to a slideshow that led to a Twitter account criticizing Lenovo for its involvement with the adware Superfish.
Lenovo did not immediately respond to a request for comment but confirmed the security breach in a statement to the Wall Street Journal.
"Unfortunately, Lenovo has been the victim of a cyber attack," the company said. "One effect of this attack was to redirect traffic from the Lenovo website. We are also actively investigating other aspects of the attack. We are responding and have already restored certain functionality to our public facing website."
Hacking group Lizard Squad claimed responsibility for the hack on a Twitter account allegedly associated with the group. Lizard Squad, a loose collective reportedly composed of hackers based out of the United Kingdom and Eastern Europe, also was linked to a series of outages that plagued the PlayStation Network and other games last year.
While it was first thought that Lenovo's servers had been subverted, it now appears that attackers took control of the site's domain registrar and redirected its traffic to a free account at CloudFlare, a San Francisco-based security company. CloudFlare told Bloomberg that it disabled the account used by the attackers.
The incident occurred less than a week after the Chinese PC maker found itself in hot water following revelations that many of its PCs include a software program called Superfish Visual Discovery. Considered either adware or spyware, Superfish tracks your Web searches and browsing activity to place additional ads on the sites you visit. The software also installs its own root certificate that leaves affected PCs more vulnerable to malware attacks.
Lenovo has apologized for the problem and has begun work to resolve it. "We messed up badly," Peter Hortensius, Lenovo's chief technology officer, said last week.
Lenovo already already has its own smartphones (such as the S850 seen above), but the company is forming a new subsidiary to focus on smart devices.Andrew Hoyle/CNET
It appears Lenovo wants in on the lucrative online sales action that Xiaomi's been enjoying so far. The Chinese tech company known globally for its notebooks will be setting up a new subsidiary next year on April 1 to focus on smart devices and Internet sales in China.
Lenovo's press release says that the new company will have a different name and branding, and will be helmed by its current president of China and Asia Pacific and emerging markets, Chen Xudong.
The company will also move Liu Jun, its current head of the company's mobile business group and the head of the ecosystem and cloud services group, George He, to the new company.
Like Xiaomi, the new company will sell new phones and tablets only through the Internet, skipping the distributors and carriers.
However, despite the vast resources and branding that Lenovo has, the road ahead may not be an easy task.
"Xiaomi isn't just about selling cheaper phones online; developing a cult following will be a challenge if Lenovo is really emulating Xiaomi," says IDC analyst Bryan Ma.
"Xiaomi comes from a software background versus Lenovo's hardware roots. It will be interesting to see how Lenovo measures success of this spinoff. Will it be looking at mindshare over profits?"
Lenovo's not the first Chinese company to try to spin off a more focused brand. Other tech giants such as Huawei and ZTE have also something similar -- Huawei's Honor and ZTE's Nubia comes to mind.
Given Lenovo's strong Asian roots and the fact that the new company's CEO, Chen, is well familiar with the region, it very well could be that Lenovo's new subsidiary will have its sights firmly set on Asia when it debuts next year.
Despite a rocky quarter for iPads, Apple stayed on top of the global market for PCs, according to market researcher Canalys, which includes tablets in PC shipments.
The dive in iPad shipments in the first quarter was the "sharpest ever" -- as Apple sold off iPad inventory -- but the company will maintain its lead in the tablet market "for some time," Canalys said Thursday, attributing Apple's staying power to a robust ecosystem and apps like Office for iPad.
Apple had a combined total of about 20 million iPads and Macs in the first quarter.
We do not believe Apple's Q1 performance points to a decline in the tablet category, despite growing pressure from larger-screen smart phones. Consumers, and increasingly businesses, are continuing to adapt, with tablets acting as disruptors and finding their place as desktop and notebook replacements.
The US market was adversely affected by a drop in Apple iPad shipments, which fell 40%. This was offset somewhat by 20% growth in China, Apple's second largest market. Worldwide, iPad shipments in Q1 fell 16% year on year to 16.4 million and accounted for 80% of Apple's total PC shipments. -- Canalys
Lenovo was No. 2 and increased its share of combined tablet and traditional PC shipments (laptops and desktops) to 12 percent from 10 percent in the year earlier period. It is now placed first, second, and third in the notebook, desktop, and tablet markets respectively, according to Canalys.
"Lenovo was quick to move with new form factors and its Yoga line now dominates the global convertible notebook market," Canalys said.
Hewlett-Packard, which was No. 3 in combined shipments, is still struggling with tablets.
"With fewer than 400,000 tablets shipped in the quarter, HP still has much work to do...But it is now delivering on a tablet strategy that emphasizes strong differentiation based on connectivity," Canalys said, referring to HP's penchant to offer built-in 3G/4G in its tablets.
For the overall market, growth in tablet shipments slowed to 21 percent but tablets still accounted for 41 percent of the market versus 38 percent for laptops.
The good:The large screen and lie-flat design make the Lenovo Horizon 27 a fun family PC with lots of casual gaming potential. It includes several gaming accessories and has a custom user interface, Aura.
The bad:The heavy, clunky kickstand can get in the way, there's a little sluggishness with some of the software, and battery life is way too short for a game of Monopoly.
The bottom line:Tabletop PCs may not be fully ready for the mainstream, but this coffee-table-size version from Lenovo is fun to use, and doubles as a solid all-in-one desktop.
