Wednesday, December 18th 2024
US Authorities Investigating TP-Link Over Connection to China-backed Cyberattacks
Popular router manufacturer TP-Link is being investigated by US authorities over an alleged connection to cyberattacks emanating from the PRC. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Commerce, Justice and Defense departments are all investigating the company and the Commerce Department has gone as far as issuing a subpoena to TP-Link. The WSJ states that TP-Link holds close to a 65 percent market share in the US consumer router market, which puts the company in a unique market position.
The end results of the investigations, assuming either US authority finds any wrongdoings, could lead to TP-Link being banned from selling its routers in the US. A spokeswoman for TP-Link in the US issued the following statement to the WSJ "We welcome any opportunities to engage with the U.S. government to demonstrate that our security practices are fully in line with industry security standards, and to demonstrate our ongoing commitment to the U.S. market, U.S. consumers, and addressing U.S. national security risks".
At this point in time, it's unclear on what grounds TP-Link is being investigated beyond being a PRC based company and the WSJ mentions that no US officials have disclosed any obvious means of the PRC being able to leverage TP-Link routers to perform cyberattacks on US targets. Almost all router manufacturers, regardless if they target consumers or corporations, have suffered from various vulnerabilities that hackers have taken advantage of in the past, to create massive DDOS attacks, but these investigations don't appear to be going after sloppy firmware releases.
Instead, it sounds like the US authorities are suspecting something more sinister here, but if that truly is the case, then there ought to be indications from other nations that similar activity is happening there and so far, this has not been reported to be the case, but both Taiwan and India have banned the use of TP-Link products in government facilities, calling the devices a security risk. Time will tell what the Commerce, Justice and Defense departments digs up, but neither authority is expected to deliver their findings until sometime next year.
Source:
The Wall Street Journal
The end results of the investigations, assuming either US authority finds any wrongdoings, could lead to TP-Link being banned from selling its routers in the US. A spokeswoman for TP-Link in the US issued the following statement to the WSJ "We welcome any opportunities to engage with the U.S. government to demonstrate that our security practices are fully in line with industry security standards, and to demonstrate our ongoing commitment to the U.S. market, U.S. consumers, and addressing U.S. national security risks".
Instead, it sounds like the US authorities are suspecting something more sinister here, but if that truly is the case, then there ought to be indications from other nations that similar activity is happening there and so far, this has not been reported to be the case, but both Taiwan and India have banned the use of TP-Link products in government facilities, calling the devices a security risk. Time will tell what the Commerce, Justice and Defense departments digs up, but neither authority is expected to deliver their findings until sometime next year.
18 Comments on US Authorities Investigating TP-Link Over Connection to China-backed Cyberattacks
Whatever sinister stuff it is, just point-out that almost all of their SOHO models are moddable to DD-WRT/Open-WRT.
Which is kind of the common sense approach when TP-Link has always sold cheaper choices, but the real price was paid when product support is spotty and their firmware updates extend to the devices' warranty period, at best.
Their hardware is okay, the earlier revisions of models, at least.
You buy cheap, you get cheap.
Netgear, as you say, are too costly to be a big player and their cheaper products are very much meh.Yeah, that's why a lot of their products have been popular with more knowledgeable buyers.
My major issue is their lack of support for most of their products, that only get 3-4 firmware updates and then they release a new hardware revision and start over.
The hardware is indeed not terrible, especially for the asking price for many of them, but the software is far from great.There are a lot of additional details in the WSJ piece, including a bit of back story on TP-Link as a company.
They apparently moved their HQ to Singapore a few years ago, to try and appear less xinese...
Edit: just looked it up. I was right. :laugh:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys
Even if, and this is a big if, their so-called "security practices" are up to snuff, their quality & software/support suks wallah, which is EXACTLY the reason I abandoned their stuff years ago...
'nuff said :D
I just setup an Archer C20i as a backup access point. It still had its OG firmware dating somewhere in 2014. The newest firmware was released in 2022.
At home I have an Archer C80. Released in 2020 but it received an update this month (2024-12-06).
I would argue that this doesn't constitute saying "firmware updates extend to the devices' warranty period".
I would even argue that there isn't a single value brand out there that gives the same level of support.
But really for a cheap brand I recommend ubiquiti instead they are very affordable for the enterprise level features they give you
What I'm saying is that those exceptions won't break the rule, which is that for their products you can actually get something that might be supported beyond warranty, but that is not their track record.
Check the Range Extenders, Access Points (the AP200/300/500 (EU) had so much promise and zero delivery), Powerlines, many routers that are not "Archers", etc. Also gatekeeping features behind hardware revisions is a thing of them. Like, if you're not going to implement "EasyMesh" (which seems to be their proprietary interpretation of 802.11s) for a V 1.0 or 2.0 hardware, at least give the option of 802.11v and 802.11k. But no.