Over 30 million Dell PCs at risk of cyberattack

Ground report | New Delhi: Over 30 million Dell PCs at risk; Cybercriminals are always looking for new alternatives to defeat users' computer security barriers. This time, the security firm Eclypsium has discovered four vulnerabilities in the functions of 'Dell BIOSConnect' within 'Dell SupportAssist', which affects the firmware of more than 30 million computers of this brand.

Over 30 million Dell PCs at risk

Before explaining what happened, we must explain the concept of the firmware. This support is a basic program that controls the electronic circuits of any device, that is, it is in charge of controlling what the hardware of a computer has to do to ensure that it functions correctly. Eclypsium has detected that 129 Dell brand models are vulnerable to this cyberattack.

This mishap affects a Dell tool called 'BIOSConnect', which allows updating the BIOS (a fundamental element in starting a PC) of computers automatically or very easily. Consequently, cybercriminals have tricked users into employing a version of BIOSConnect in order to introduce malicious firmware.

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If you think that your antivirus can stop this attack, you are quite wrong, since its danger is not stored on the hard disk or in the memory of the computer. This means that it cannot be detected by conventional antivirus.

The problems originated in March

Last March, Eclypsium informed Dell of the security issues it found, and the brand quickly issued a security advisory to its customers and began to fix them. Two of the fixes were updated on the server machines, and the others were pushed to the Dell cloud.

According to Eclypsium, Dell responded to the company on May 14 with a proposal to remedy these issues and provide updates in July.

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How the problem can be solved

The Dell brand has announced in a statement that it has already updated the application to cover the security hole. Therefore, it has asked users to renew it automatically or manually as soon as possible.

If you are one of those affected, download the app from the following link, as it will take you to the Dell 'Downloads' website.

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