Dell's Laptops are Infected with 'Superfish-Like' pre-installed Malware

Similar to the Superfish malware that surrounded Lenovo laptops in February, another big computer manufacturer Dell spotted selling PCs and laptops pre-installed with a rogue SSL certificate that could allow attackers:

• To impersonate as any HTTPS-protected website and spy on when banking or shopping online.

The rogue certificate, dubbed eDellRoot, was first discovered over the weekend by a software programmer named Joe Nord. The certificate is so creepy that it automatically re-installs itself even when removed from the Windows operating system.

Superfish 2.0: Unkillable Zombie

The self-signed transport layer security (TLS) credential came pre-installed as a root certificate on Dell PCs and laptops that are signed with the same private cryptographic key, which is stored locally.

That means an attacker with moderate technical skills can extract the key and abuse it to sign forged version of TLS certificates for any HTTPS-protected site on the Internet, exposing users to all manner of SSL attacks.

The certificate key can be used to conduct man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks on Dell owners, silently stealing user names, passwords, session cookies, and other sensitive information when the affected Dell machines are connected to a malicious Wi-Fi hotspots in cafes, hospitals or airports.

The problem is similar to the scandal that hit Lenovo in February when the PC manufacturer was caught pre-installing an invasive adware program called Superfish with a similar self-signed cert to inject third-party advertisements into websites on browsers.

Although Dell's case is different as there is no indication that the certificate is being used to inject advertisements on the laptops, the resulting security issue is the same.

Affected PCs and Laptops

The self-signed certificate key was discovered to be pre-installed as a root certificate on at least three Dell laptop models:

• Dell Inspiron 5000 series notebook
• Dell XPS 15
• Dell XPS 13

This indicates that the dangerous certificate may be present on a significant number of the Dell desktops and laptops currently on the market, specifically recent Dell Inspiron Desktop, XPS, and Precision M4800and Latitude models.

To Check if Your Computer is Vulnerable

To discover the dangerous certificate:

• Open up the Start menu
• Select Run
• Type in certmgr.msc – the Windows certificate manager – into the box and Hit Enter
• Open up the Trusted Root Certification Authority folder on the left
• Select Certificates
• Search for eDellRoot

Once found, right-click over eDellRoot and hit "Remove." It appears to be gone, but actually it's not.

Reboot your computer and reopen certmgr.msc and search for the certificate "eDellRoot". Yeah, the removed root CA cert is back.

What Should You do? How to Remove?

It seems that even if the certificate is clearly fraudulent, Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer browsers always establish an encrypted Web session with no warnings.

But fortunately, Mozilla's Firefox web browser generates an alert warning that the certificate was not trusted.

So, Dell customers with new XPS, Precision, and Inspiron models are advised to use Firefox to browse the web.

To fix the issue completely, Dell users will need to manually revoke the certificate permissions, which is a complex and technically demanding task.

Moreover, security researcher Darren Kemp from Duo Security says that the problem may be even worse than what Nord suggested.

According to an analysis done by Kempa, a bundled plugin re-installs the root CA file when it is removed. So, to remove the eDellRoot certificate completely, you must:

• First delete Dell.Foundation.Agent.Plugins.eDell.dll from your system
• Then remove the eDellRoot root CA certificate

Dell's Response

In a statement, a Dell spokesperson said the company is investigating the report and looking into the certificate, but emphasized the company’s policy of minimizing pre-loaded software for security reasons.

"Customer security and privacy is a top concern for Dell," the spokesperson said. "We've a team investigating the current [issue] and will update you as soon as we have more information."

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Security vulnerabilities found in support software from Lenovo, Toshiba, and Dell

Security flaws pile up in support applications installed by PC manufacturers

Lenovo ThinkPad X240 (2) Credit: Lenovo

The number of vulnerabilities discovered in technical support applications installed on PCs by manufacturers keeps piling up. New exploits have been published for flaws in Lenovo Solution Center, Toshiba Service Station and Dell System Detect.

The most serious flaws appear to be in Lenovo Solution Center and could allow a malicious Web page to execute code on Lenovo Windows-based computers with system privileges.

The flaws were discovered by a hacker who uses the online aliases slipstream and RoL and who released a proof-of-concept exploit for them last week. This prompted the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University to publish a security advisory.

One of the issues is caused by the LSCTaskService, which is created by the Lenovo Solution Center and runs with SYSTEM privileges. This service opens an HTTP daemon on port 55555 that can receive commands. One of those commands is called RunInstaller and executes files placed in the %APPDATA%\LSC\Local Store folder.

Any local user can write to this directory, regardless of their privilege, but the files are executed as the SYSTEM account. This means that a restricted user can exploit the logic flaw to gain full system access.

Furthermore, there is a directory traversal flaw that can be exploited to trick the Lenovo Solution Center to execute code from arbitrary locations, so an attacker doesn’t even need to place files in the aforementioned Local Store folder.

Finally, the LSCTaskService is vulnerable to cross-site request forgery (CSRF), an attack method through which a malicious website can relay rogue requests through the user’s browser. This means that, in order to exploit the previous two flaws, an attacker doesn’t even need to have local access to the system where the Lenovo Solution Center is installed and can simply trick the user to visit a specially crafted Web page.

In a security advisory on its website, Lenovo said that it is currently investigating the vulnerability report and will provide a fix as soon as possible. Until then, concerned users can uninstall the Lenovo Solution Center in order to mitigate the risk, the company said.

Slipstream also published proof-of-concept exploits for two other, lower-impact, vulnerabilities—one in the Toshiba Service Station and one in Dell System Detect (DSD), a tool that users are prompted to install when they click the “Detect Product” button on Dell’s support website.

The Toshiba Service Station application creates a service called TMachInfo that runs as SYSTEM and receives commands via UDP port 1233 on the local host. One of those commands is called Reg.Read and can be used to read most of the Windows registry with system privileges, according to the hacker.

“I have no idea what to do with it, but someone else might,” slipstream wrote in the exploit comments.

The flaw in DSD apparently stems from the way Dell attempted to fix a previous vulnerability. According to slipstream, the company implemented RSA-1024 signatures to authenticate commands, but put them in a place on its website where attackers can obtain them.

These can be used as a crude bypass method for Windows’ User Account Control (UAC). In this context, the bypass means that “if DSD isn’t elevated, we annoy the user with elevation requests until they click yes,” the hacker said.

This is not the first time when vulnerabilities have been found in support tools installed on Lenovo or Dell computers.

Toshiba and Dell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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