Dell warns of data breach, 49 million customers allegedly affected

submitted by Wilshire

www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/dell-war…

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51 Comments

slurpinderpin

These companies should be forced to pay big money to each and every person affected by these breaches. Not like $120. Like $10,000 per. Teach them real lessons

TheReturnOfPEB

But instead they will be fined, and they will pay that fine to the government.

Sabata11792

They just pay up and do it again. It's a business expense, not a punishment.

lazynooblet

I expect they get themselves insured for it

BlueÆther

and then, us as the consumer will pay for the fine as well

SirEDCaLot

I agree. Even at $120 each. 120 times tens of millions is serious fucking cash. We need to have a couple of big companies go bankrupt over this shit. Then maybe they will start taking it seriously. Perhaps at that point maintaining personal data on people will be seen as a liability rather than an asset. And that's what we really need.

slurpinderpin

Yep data protection should be life or death. Either that or make the executives personally responsible ie the fines come out of their pockets

SirEDCaLot

Yup. We need more of the corporate death penalty. And when corporations are so big that 'killing' them would harm the economy, I argue we're back to too big to fail. Maybe the answer is giant fines, and if the company can't pay, wipe out the largest shareholders and then resell the stock over time. Make people's personal information a giant hot potato that nobody wants to be holding.

explodicle

Why stop there? Abolish the corporate veil. Those motherfuckers can buy liability insurance.

SirEDCaLot

Disagree. Breaking the corporate veil would have a whole lot of unintended consequences and would basically kill investment as a concept. I agree we need to do more about corporations that violate the law with impunity and get wrist slaps. I don't think that's it.

explodicle

Why do you think it would kill investment despite liability insurance?

Grandwolf319

Even $120 would be amazing. I just got an email that said too bad. I just bought a monitor cause that’s where they sold it. Idk why they have to save my info. I just want to pay for the product. If it was up to me, they would delete all my info immediately. They only need to record when the serial number was sold anyway.

Oh if only I was European.

kibiz0r , edited

Instantly makes [edit 2: my brain was being dumb, I didn't mean literally ransomware, I meant hackers blackmailing companies with the threat of releasing/selling stolen data] far more profitable.

Edit: And heavily discourages self-reporting. There’s a Schneier quote I like: “You can't defend. You can't prevent. The only thing you can do is detect and respond.”

explodicle

If the data is breached, won't we find out anyways once they start selling it?

kibiz0r

Absolutely. But the penalty does modify the cost-benefit analysis. If a hacker demands $5m or else they will release stolen data, you might be more inclined to YOLO the 5 mil on the 1% chance they're an honest hacker if the penalty for the breach is $50bn.

exanime

Exactly... Meanwhile some poor soul goes to jail because he is too broke to pay for some parking fines

tal

The breach here is pretty minor, in my book. Name, address, specifics of computer purchased. The name and address is pretty much available and linked already. The computer isn't, but doesn't seem that abusable. Maybe it could help someone locate more-expensive, newer computers for theft, but I don't see a whole lot of potential room for abuse.

coolmojo

I do see potential room for abuse. Let say someone has the list and contact the members of the list saying that they are from Dell and it is about the computer they purchased. They have all details, spec, address, etc so it believable. Then they tell them to buy some “antivirus” or install some “hot fix” etc. Scammers are already doing this, but it is less convincing.

BugKilla , edited

Exactly, a lot data exfil'd is used to enrich other sources. All data loss should be treated as a catastrophic failure of security controls. Corporate victims should pay for their customers potential loss of identity and privacy as a preemptive action, even if the data in of itself may be considered low risk. If compliance with this is difficult then executives should be forced under law to post all of their personal info into Wikipedia with audio samples of their voice, full genome mapping and mugshots. Fuck these companies and their profits over people attitude.

xep

Now my friends know I bought an Alienware device. I'm never going to live this down.

pdxfed

A gamer cannot sink lower. Build your own if you care!

shininghero

It's only minor if the data points in this breach are used by themselves.
Once you aggregate this with other data breaches, you could end up with a much bigger capability to target anyone in this breach.

Optional

afaict only if a specific hardware vulnerability was found and they cross-linked it with an online account or other network info to try and exploit it.

Or, I guess you could just assume Windows and go with one of the many zero-days that happen there. The trick is still crosslinking them tho. Presumably google has the wifi info.

slurpinderpin

Don’t care, punish them all the same.

Artyom

In the case of this breach, I'd be happy with a $10 payout, the consequences for me are actually pretty low here. That being said, I think we'd be lucky if Dell had to pay more than $0.50 per person, and that money will probably go to a lawyer's fees, not me.

leds

Got this:

Hello, Dell Technologies takes the privacy and confidentiality of your information seriously. We are currently investigating an incident involving a Dell portal, which contains a database with limited types of customer information related to purchases from Dell. We believe there is not a significant risk to our customers given the type of information involved.

What data was accessed? At this time, our investigation indicates limited types of customer information was accessed, including: - Name - Physical address - Dell hardware and order information, including service tag, item description, date of order and related warranty information

Snapz

Sending you this single message satisfies our legal disclosure requirement. Beyond that, we have no actual intention of fixing this, providing you with a meaningful compensation for the breech or really doing anything different at all truthfully. Fuck you.

fossphi

So people know how expensive a computer is at the address. What could go wrong

IHawkMike

Right, because international hackers are going to mobilize boots on the ground across the world to steal your fucking Optiplex.

sugar_in_your_tea , edited

I think it's more likely that an attacker would make a fake collections call if you bought something really expensive, especially if they can prove you bought on credit or something. A little ChatGPT and you'd have a targeted script to use.

the_artic_one

The leak didn't include phone numbers or emails but I'm sure there will be attempts at spear phishing businesses since they can figure out the business name from the physical address.

sugar_in_your_tea

It's trivial to get phone numbers given an address in most cases.

Coldgoron

Can’t have my ssn stolen if it has already hit the dark web.

bruhduh

5d chess move right here

Hobbes_Dent

Dude, you’re getting a delinquency letter.

But, like, we paid our fine. Sorry 🤙

Joanie Parker , edited

They emailed me earlier about it... Good thing I've only ever bought a monitor from them.

🐍🩶🐢

Sames. They make sweet monitors.

Grandwolf319

Even then, why do they need to store my personal information? After delivery, my info should be wiped besides the date of purchase for said serial number.

FenrirIII

Expect a ton of Indian people calling pretending to be Dell Support.

secret300

What fuckin data is dell even getting and how?

dev_null

I got their notice email, apparently I bought a laptop charger from them years ago, and after all this time they were still keeping my name, email and physical address, which now leaked. So that's how.

secret300

That's insane to me

Eeyore_Syndrome

Somebody needs to make a "Dell Dude meme" about this.

Wilshire [OP] , edited

"Dude, you're getting your identity stolen!"

someguy3

Holy fuck. Is that like all their customers?

The Octonaut

lol no