Dell Server Computers Shipped With Virus

That‘s gotta hurt.

Dell has inadvertently shipped replacement motherboards for its PowerEdge servers that are infected with the Spybot worm. The malware affects servers running Windows, but not other operating systems.

The worm can be triggered if users run an update to either the Unified Server Configurator (USC) or 32-bit Diagnostics on the server.

According to a Dell employee posting to the PowerEdge server support forum, “the W32.Spybot worm was discovered in flash storage on the motherboard during Dell testing.” The worm, which is not part of the firmware, can be blocked by “all industry-standard antivirus programs on the market today,” he said.

Did you notice that word “inadvertently” in the first sentence? No one “inadvertently” installs malware onto a motherboard. It is PLACED there. I’m not saying Dell did it. But SOMEONE surely did.

Dell is being rather secretive about how the malware got there, and is being criticized for taking slow action. Weird.