{"id":3210,"date":"2010-07-25T14:35:12","date_gmt":"2010-07-25T18:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbach.net\/blog\/?p=3210"},"modified":"2022-12-30T15:24:10","modified_gmt":"2022-12-30T20:24:10","slug":"more-dell-hardware-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/more-dell-hardware-woes\/","title":{"rendered":"More Dell Hardware Woes"},"content":{"rendered":"

– Updated 10-08-10 – <\/em><\/strong>Dell has settled the lawsuit which claimed the computer manufacturer hid computer defects. The New York Times<\/em><\/a> reports<\/a> that Dell settled the suit (09-23-2010) brought by Advanced Internet Technologies in Federal District Court in North Carolina. The terms of the tentative settlement were not disclosed.<\/p>\n

In the NYT<\/em> article, Clarence E. Briggs III, chief executive for Advanced Internet, in Fayetteville, NC, declined to comment about the settlement, as did his lawyer. David S. Frink, a spokesman for Dell, in Round Rock, TX, told the NYT <\/em> \u201csettling the matter is better and more cost-effective for the company than taking the case to trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

– Updated 08-15-10 – <\/em><\/strong>The New York Times<\/em><\/a> is reporting<\/a> that Advanced Internet Technologies (A.I.T) is accusing Dell of withholding evidence in their lawsuit, including e-mails among its top executives including Michael Dell, in a filing made Thursday. According to the NYT<\/em>, A.I.T. filed a motion in Federal District Court in North Carolina asserting that Dell had deliberately violated a court order by failing to produce documents written by its executives, including the company\u2019s chief executive and founder, Michael S. Dell.<\/p>\n

In its filing, A.I.T. asserted that Dell had provided only a snippet of the communications among top executives about the faulty computer problems. The NYT<\/em> says A.I.T. argued that Dell must have had more high-level communications than a \u201ctalking points\u201d memorandum sent to Mr. Dell and Kevin Rollins, then the chief executive.<\/p>\n

Larry E. Daniel, a digital forensics expert, has filed an affidavit in the case, stating that the handful of messages Dell provided appeared altered and incomplete according to the NYT article. Mr. Daniel suggested that Dell should provide access to the underlying e-mail files rather than cutting and pasting text.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"MoreHuman error is to blame for the latest Dell<\/a> hardware gaffe. PCWorld<\/em><\/a> is reporting<\/a> that a sequence of errors led to Dell’s delivery of motherboards with malware.\u00a0 On 7-21-10, Dell said that some replacement motherboards for PowerEdge servers<\/a> may have contained the W32.Spybot<\/a> worm in flash storage. The malware issue affected a limited number of replacement motherboards in four servers, the PowerEdge R310, R410, R510, and T410 models, according to an email from Forrest Norrod, vice president and general manager of server platforms at the Round Rock, Texas firm.<\/p>\n

A sequence of human errors<\/h3>\n

\"Dell<\/a>The company confirmed on 7-21-10\u00a0 it is in the process of overhauling its testing procedures to resolve issues before sending hardware to customers. “There was a sequence of human errors that led to the issue, That being said, we have identified and implemented 16 additional process steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” said Dell spokesperson Jim Hahn.<\/p>\n

Hahn did not provide more details to PCWorld<\/em> on the steps being added to track and resolve such issues. But he said that all affected motherboards had been removed from the service supply chain. Dell is quick to point out that current anti-virus software with updated signatures would flag the malware’s presence and users would have to be running an unpatched version of Windows 2008 or an earlier version of the OS to be vulnerable.<\/p>\n

PCWorld<\/em> cites a Dell quality management specialist who wrote in an e-mail that the code was accidentally introduced during the manufacturing process of the server motherboards. “This flash is the one that holds your BIOS and it can be updated online. If proper security precautions are not in place, the flash chip is every bit as capable of containing a piece of malware as is the hard-disk drive,” according to Jim Handy, director at Objective Analysis, a semiconductor research company in PCWorld<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Simha Sethumadhavan, assistant professor of computer science at Columbia University told PCWorld<\/em> that this incident shows how hardware, either flash or a processor if hacked, can be used as a way to transmit malware. “All software runs on the hardware. If the processor is hacked then it can subvert all software countermeasures. Since hardware is the root of trust, attacks on hardware are potentially more dangerous.”
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Other Recent Dell issues include:<\/h3>\n