Reuters reports that the U.S. Commerce Department has been urged by House Select Committee on China Heads John Moolenaar, R-Mich., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., to investigate major Chinese network equipment manufacturer TP-Link — which was noted by the IDC to be the world's leading WiFi router seller — for possible national security risks stemming from potential cyberattack usage.
Conducting a federal probe on TP-Link was noted by the lawmakers to be crucial following reports that known TP-Link firmware and instance vulnerabilities were leveraged by threat actors to compromise European government officials. TP-Link has already denied the presence of security flaws in its routers while the Chinese Embassy has called for sufficient evidence to support the allegations of cyber-related incidents.
Such a development comes months after Chinese state-backed cyberespionage operation Volt Typhoon was noted by Microsoft, the U.S., and its allies to have compromised private routers, most of which are from NetGear and Cisco, to stealthily infiltrate U.S. critical infrastructure.
