Lenovo buries spyware at core of PCs

New York

THE same week when researchers reported that the National Security Agency (NSA) had been embedding surveillance tools in the guts of thousands of machines in Iran, Russia and other countries, it was revealed that the world's largest personal computer (PC) company had been doing something similar to its customers.

The Chinese computer-making giant Lenovo was inserting spyware - its defenders would call it adware - in its PCs. This software could track customers' every online move, intercept secure Web sessions and render their computers vulnerable to hackers.