Dell Laptops and PCs Vulnerable To Remote Hijacks

A vulnerability in the Dell SupportAssist utility exposes Dell laptops and personal computers to a remote attack that can allow hackers to execute code with admin privileges on devices using an older version of this tool and take over users' systems. From a report: Dell has released a patch for this security flaw on April 23; however, many users are likely to remain vulnerable unless they've already updated the tool -- which is used for debugging, diagnostics, and Dell drivers auto-updates. The number of impacted users is believed to be very high, as the SupportAssist tool is one of the apps that Dell will pre-install on all Dell laptops and computers the company ships with a running Windows OS (systems sold without an OS are not impacted). According to Bill Demirkapi, a 17-year-old security researcher from the US, the Dell SupportAssist app is vulnerable to a "remote code execution" vulnerability that under certain circumstances can allow attackers an easy way to hijack Dell systems.

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