Router manufacturer TP-Link has become one of the latest victims of this trend as US authorities investigate allegations of TP-Link supplying routers containing security flaws that supposedly allow malicious actors use them to conduct cyberattacks.
TP-Link currently controls about 65% of the “US market for routers for homes and small businesses,” The Wall Street Journal notes, not to mention that it “powers internet communications for the Defense Department and other federal government agencies.”
Meanwhile, a Microsoft report unveiled in October alleged that Chinese hackers employed a network comprised of compromised devices that consisted mostly of TP-Link routers to carry out cyberattacks.
Commenting on the allegations, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington told The Wall Street Journal that the United States seeks to “suppress Chinese companies” under the pretense of protecting its national security.
In 2022, the US banned the import and sale of communications and video surveillance equipment produced by five Chinese companies – ZTE, Huawei, Hikvision, Dahua and Hytera – claiming that these pose a risk to US national security.
Huawei was also prohibited by the United States and some of its allies like Japan from building 5G networks on their soil as they supposedly could be used for espionage.