The committee claims that these routers are a backdoor for Beijing’s hackers to meddle with US critical infrastructure.
According to IDC, the House Select Committee on China is pushing the Commerce Department to investigate TP-Link, the world’s biggest WiFi router maker by unit volume.
US authorities are even mulling an outright ban on the company’s gear.
Rob Joyce, former cybersecurity director at the NSA, told lawmakers that TP-Link devices could be hijacked for cyberattacks on US infrastructure. He urged Americans to rip them out of their homes before they became unwitting accomplices in digital warfare.
Like many of these anti-china technology claims by US politicians, actual proof has been thin on the ground.
Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi held up a TP-Link router like it was radioactive and said, “Don’t use this" seemed to indicate that he was not aware that it would have to be switched on and connected to cause any trouble.
He said he would not allow one in the house, given that he was holding it in a US government committee room which would be a much bigger security risk.
TP-Link, naturally, fired back at the accusations, saying the hearing failed to produce “a shred of evidence” linking the company to Beijing.
TP-Link president Jeff Barney said: “No government has access to or control over the design and production of our routers.”
The company now manufactures routers in Vietnam after parting ways with its former China affiliate.
Joyce warned that Chinese hackers were catching up to the US in cyber capabilities. He also looked at Donald [hamburger-eating surrender monkey] Trump’s administration, blaming its mass layoffs at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) for undermining American cyber defences.
The CISA flagged a vulnerability in TP-Link routers last year that allowed remote code execution. But Krishnamoorthi wants more than just defensive measures. He suggested using cyber vigilantism to fight Chinese hackers, even floating the idea of enlisting private-sector hackers to “hack back.”
