Dell Ships Infected Motherboards

An anonymous reader writes "Computer maker Dell is warning that some of its server motherboards have been delivered to customers carrying an unwanted extra: computer malware. It could be confirmation that the 'hardware trojans' long posited by some security experts are indeed a real threat."

Comments

Wow.

[mcgrew]

Did they buy the parts from Sony? ;)

TFA didn't say how the malware got there.

Dell confirms on the same forum: "The potential issue involves a small number of PowerEdge server motherboards sent out through service dispatches that may contain malware. This malware code has been detected on the embedded server management firmware."

<snip>

The Pentagon is spending millions on research designed to ensure it can trust the microchips in critical systems, especially those made outside the US.

Elsewhere, researchers are also investigating the threat from would-be chip-plant saboteurs, who poison the chip-making processes to introduce a "kill switch" that makes the chip fail unexpectedly.

My guess is that the computer that flashed the firmware was infected. Too bad Dell hates Linux; had the computer that flashed the firmware been running Linux or BSD (or even a Mac) this likely wouldn't have happened.

Re:SW/HW Malware

[BitZtream]

Could be worse, they could ship with Linux.