Gross sales of networking merchandise from Chinese language producer TP-Hyperlink needs to be prohibited within the U.S., greater than a dozen congressional Republicans mentioned in a letter to the Trump administration, echoing earlier claims that the corporate presents a nationwide safety threat and engages in predatory pricing.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton and 16 different GOP lawmakers wrote this week to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, saying his division ought to block future gross sales of TP-Hyperlink’s well-liked small workplace/dwelling workplace (SOHO) web routers.
“TP-Hyperlink’s deep ties to the Chinese language Communist Celebration (CCP), use of predatory pricing to remove trusted U.S. alternate options, and function in embedding overseas surveillance and harmful capabilities into our networks render it a transparent and current hazard,” the senators wrote.
SOHO routers from numerous producers have been weak to botnets used for cybercrime and nation-state cyberthreats. In 2024 the FBI touted takedowns of a minimum of two botnets attributed to Chinese language state-backed hackers. Lawmakers requested the Commerce Division final yr to analyze safety dangers introduced by TP-Hyperlink routers.
In an emailed assertion, TP-Hyperlink mentioned the most recent letter was “sadly primarily based on unfounded press rumors.” The corporate mentioned it isn’t state-sponsored and has no ties to the ruling Chinese language Communist Celebration, including that “TP-Hyperlink has been the sufferer of a smear marketing campaign, pushed by the objective of eradicating a competitor from {the marketplace}.”
TP-Hyperlink mentioned it has acquired no inquiries from U.S. antitrust investigators, and it maintains that the Commerce Division “doesn’t have authorized authority to right away prohibit gross sales of TP-Hyperlink merchandise.” The corporate has a U.S. workplace in Irvine, California, however is predicated in Shenzen, China.
In requesting the ban on TP-Hyperlink router gross sales, the lawmakers cited Govt Order 13873, signed by President Donald Trump in his first time period, which permits the Commerce Division to ban foreign-made merchandise deemed to current threats to nationwide safety.
In an in depth weblog publish in March, TP-Hyperlink disputed testimony in a Home panel concerning the firm’s hyperlinks to the CCP and its American market share. TP-Hyperlink mentioned the Volt Storm, Salt Storm, and Flax Storm hacking campaigns attributed to China “haven’t any discernible choice for utilizing TP-Hyperlink routers as a vector.”
In late April the corporate praised the Home passage of the ROUTERS Act, laws that might direct the Commerce Division to check “the nationwide safety dangers posed by client routers and modems.”
Recorded Future
Intelligence Cloud.
Study extra.
