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Do you own a Hewlett-Packard (HP) Windows PC or laptop?
Multiple HP customers from around the world are reporting that HP has started deploying a « spyware » onto their laptops—without informing them or asking their permission.
The application being branded as spyware is actually a Windows Telemetry service deployed by HP, called « HP Touchpoint Analytics Client, » which was first identified on November 15.
According to reports on several online forums, the telemetry software—which the HP customers said they never opted to have installed and had no idea was continually running in the background—was pushed out in a recent update.
However, it’s not yet clear whether the software has come with the latest Microsoft’s Windows updates, or via HP’s support assistant processes.
An official description of the software says that the program « harvests telemetry information that is used by HP Touchpoint’s analytical services. »
HP Touchpoint Makes Your Computer Slow
HP customers also complained that the installation slowed down their system significantly.
On HP’s customer forum, one user even reported that due to more than 95 percent CPU usage by the analytics service, his system anti-malware software started checking for suspicious activity.
Another user owning an HP laptop head on to Reddit and said:
« So today all of a sudden, I’m experiencing a considerable slowdown in my laptop (Pavilion P3V59PA). Once I look for the problem in Task Manager, I found out that the program called HP Touchpoint Analytics Client (and it’s subsequent follow up) constantly jumping the memory usage (~300Mb at a minimum, ~nearly 2Mb at maximum). »
« I don’t remember ever installing this program whatsoever, and in control panel, I found that for some reason this program was silently installed today, without my consent. »
To read the original article:
https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/hp-computers-telemetry-data.html
