The ‘Superfish' software was found on the laptops, which were sold in the UK from around mid-2014 until last month.
The software pushes extra ads into web browsers of affected users. However, as the ads were coming from unidentified sources, some sites would slow down and would show unwanted results.
That moment when you realize that staying quiet would have been the better option! http://t.co/tnAbY7H1rX #Superfish pic.twitter.com/BqK6Pz8oR8
— Jens Vorast (@r4m3u5) February 19, 2015
On top of the extra ads, the Superfish could also be used by hackers to look into the Internet browsing activities of some users through what is known as a ‘man-in-the-middle' attack.
I extracted the #SuperFish certificate and cracked the password: http://t.co/mBg42VBn46 pic.twitter.com/fNLT4EHHhH
— Rob Graham (@ErrataRob) February 19, 2015
The man-in-the-middle attacks use fake certificates, which then allow companies to intercept information between a user's computer and a website.
As a result, many different types of antivirus software identify Superfish as a virus.
Online Outrage
After the presence of the Superfish was revealed, many people have turned to Lenovo's online forum to demand answers from the company, and to try and find ways to rid their laptops of the software.
As if it wasn't hard enough to keep malware off of a PC, now Lenovo is shipping them pre-infected #superfish http://t.co/ZuOF7crWri
— Jeremy Law (@LawJeremy) February 19, 2015
Many people have tried to spread the message to those who may be affected by the software, because as Superfish runs discreetly, many people may not be aware that they have it installed on their laptops.
"@SwiftOnSecurity: I REPEAT: DO NOT INSTALL GENTOO TO FIX #SUPERFISH. THIS WILL WIPE YOUR COMPUTER." well it does take care of it! ����
— Randy Welch (@rs6w) February 19, 2015
It's thought that the only way to confirm that Lenovo laptops aren't carrying the software is completely delete Windows and re-install it.
oh #lenovo…that fish isn’t so super now, eh?
— Chris Cornutt (@enygma) February 19, 2015
Lenovo has confirmed that the Superfish software was installed on some laptops, but has since said that it has been removed as of January 2015.