US congressional committee on China urges Americans to remove routers from China

6/3/2025 6:09

A U.S. congressional

committee on Wednesday urged Americans to remove Chinese-made

wireless routers from their homes, including those made by

TP-Link, calling them a security threat that opened the door for

China to hack U.S. critical infrastructure.



The House of Representatives' select committee on China has

pushed the Commerce Department to investigate China's TP-Link

Technology Co, which according to research firm IDC, is the top

seller of WiFi routers internationally by unit volume.



U.S. authorities are considering a ban on the U.S. sale of

the company's routers, according to media reports.



Rob Joyce, former director of cybersecurity at the National

Security Agency, told a committee hearing that TP-Link devices,

exposed individuals to cyber intrusion through which hackers

could gain leverage to attack critical infrastructure.



The company appeared to be dominating U.S. retail market

share by selling devices at low prices to drive out competition,

Joyce said.



"We need to all take action and replace those devices so

they don't become the tools that are used in the attacks on the

U.S.," Joyce said, adding that he understood the Commerce

Department was considering a ban.



TP-Link did not respond immediately to a request for

comment.



The committee's Democratic ranking member Raja

Krishnamoorthi, holding up a consumer-grade TP-Link router,

said: "Don't use this."



"I don't have one at home either. It's not a good idea,"

Krishnamoorthi said.



Joyce said Chinese government-linked hackers were

"approaching a peer status" with U.S. cyber capabilities, and

that he had grave concerns that the Trump administration's

efforts to cut the federal workforce could undermine U.S. cyber

defenses.



"Eliminating probationary employees will destroy a pipeline

of top talent essential for hunting and eradicating PRC

threats," Joyce said, referring to the People's Republic of

China.



Democratic Representative Shontel Brown said the Trump

administration had laid off more than 130 officials from the

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).



In 2023, CISA said TP-Link routers had a vulnerability that

could be exploited to execute remote code.



Krishnamoorthi said the U.S. must deter Chinese hackers by

going on offense.



"I think that we should also consider potentially enlisting

private sector actors to hack back at the hackers. I'm going to

get in a lot of trouble for saying that, but I think you have to

sometimes use fire against fire," Krishnamoorthi said.