Dell BIOS/UEFI Under Attack From New Vulnerabilities - Use FWUPD For The Latest Updates

[Developer12]

I found this extremely amusing! But then I considered Dell's customers. The average user wouldn't understand word one of this article. They pay Dell to keep this kind of problem away from them, not cause it to occur.



Do you think some money changed hands, or it was just convenient for Dell employees?

Probably just stupidly convenient. Lots of people hard code 8.8.8.8 into everything from scripts to firmware because it's easy to remember and reliable.

[CochainComplex]

Well but Dell is so cucked by Intel I would also suspect that google is involved too

[ServerGarbage]

I find biosconnect a horrible name, but the worst is it does exactly as it says. A new day comes and i'm happier than the previous one to have ditched my IT career.

[piorunz]

My setup - not affected.
My router intercepts all port 53 traffic from all LAN IPs and redirects it to my local DNS resolver. Everything gets filtered, no mercy. Replies comes back to the devices masqueraded as a reply from genuine 8.8.8.8 (or whatever) server. So if I have stupid IoT devices or other Dell laptops, they all have to use my DNS resolver, no exceptions.
Huawei Android phone I use have hardcoded secondary DNS, what a crap. But this solves it.

[CommunityMember]

Wait a moment, the darn firmware has 8.8.8.8 HARD-coded into it?!

You got to be kidding! Why not Cloudflare DNS instead or ANYTHING that is not Google?!

Cloudflare DNS of 1.1.1.1 is still unreachable from some parts of the Internet (because 1.x.x.x was absconded with by some 3rd parties, and all too many examples that people put into production on their networks because they did not really understand what they were doing). I also would not be surprised to learn that when Dell was selecting a public DNS server (back many years ago) there were fewer to select from then there are today, and as the old adage goes, if it (mostly) works, don't frack with it (which is often used as the reason not to review decisions that would not be made with the same result today).

[curfew]

My setup - not affected.
My router intercepts all port 53 traffic from all LAN IPs and redirects it to my local DNS resolver. Everything gets filtered, no mercy. Replies comes back to the devices masqueraded as a reply from genuine 8.8.8.8 (or whatever) server. So if I have stupid IoT devices or other Dell laptops, they all have to use my DNS resolver, no exceptions.
Huawei Android phone I use have hardcoded secondary DNS, what a crap. But this solves it.

Why do you even have laptops if you never leave home? Laptops are for us regular people who go on holidays and even work.

[curfew]

Unfortunately I am not able to update since Dell has blocked the undervolting ability already a long time ago.

[piorunz]

Why do you even have laptops if you never leave home? Laptops are for us regular people who go on holidays and even work.

It's very simple, when you are out, working remotely, you connect to your own home network via self hosted VPN server. That way your laptop never leaves security of your home setup.

[Brane215]

These aren't just vulnerabilities, but deliberate "oopsies" that expired by being discovered, either by these people or they deliiberately uncovered them to shut the door on competition.

Which BTW, seems to be main, if not sole reason behind Windows 11. It's significant feature is dependency on TPM.
NEtwork and other attacks are flooding over deliberate backdoors that trickled down to street gangs and so now everything off-the-shelf can be remotely owned.
So theyx want to raise the bar on non-governmental access with TPM protection.

[Brane215]

My setup - not affected.
My router intercepts all port 53 traffic from all LAN IPs and redirects it to my local DNS resolver. Everything gets filtered, no mercy. Replies comes back to the devices masqueraded as a reply from genuine 8.8.8.8 (or whatever) server. So if I have stupid IoT devices or other Dell laptops, they all have to use my DNS resolver, no exceptions.
Huawei Android phone I use have hardcoded secondary DNS, what a crap. But this solves it.

All off the shelf stuff can be opened by magic packet sequence. You might be immune to this particular one, but this is a drop in the ocean.