Texas AG sues TP-Link over purported connection to China

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against Wi-Fi router maker TP-Link, alleging that the company has deceptively marketed the security of its products and allowed Chinese hacking groups to access Americans' devices. The lawsuit claims that although TP-Link is no longer owned by a Chinese company and its products are now assembled in Vietnam, the company's "ownership and supply-chain are tied to China" and it is subject to the country's data laws, which require companies to comply with requests from Chinese intelligence agencies. The lawsuit also alleges that firmware vulnerabilities in TP-Link's hardware have already "exposed millions of consumers to severe cybersecurity risks." TP-Link has denied the claims, stating that the company is an independent American company and that neither the Chinese government nor the Chinese Communist Party exercises any form of ownership or control over TP-Link, its products, or its user data. The lawsuit comes after TP-Link was reportedly being investigated at the federal level in 2024 for its devices being connected to the "Salt Typhoon" hack that accessed data from multiple US telecom companies. The Trump administration had reportedly planned to ban TP-Link's routers in 2025, but the plans were paused ahead of a meeting between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping.