Dell Technologies has issued a security patch for millions its computers dating back to 2009.
The development follows the findings by cybersecurity research firm SentinelLabs that said five serious bugs in Dell and Alienware software allow hackers to gain permissions in Microsoft Windows on the devices.
These high-severity vulnerabilities, which have remained present and undisclosed for 12 years in Dell devices for 12 years, affect hundreds of millions of devices and millions of users worldwide.
“The impact this could have on users and enterprises that fail to patch is far reaching and significant,” said Kasif Dekel, Senior Security Researcher at SentinelOne.
The cybersecurity firm has not seen any indicators that these vulnerabilities have been exploited till now. Hundreds of million of enterprises and users are currently vulnerable. It is inevitable that attackers will seek out those that do not take the appropriate action”.
The list of affected Dell computers has over 380 models, including some of the latest XPS 13 and 15 models, and the G3, G5, and G7 gaming laptops.
Dell has also listed almost 200 affected computers that it considers to be no longer receiving service.
Both Dell and SentinelLabs, however, stressed they haven’t seen evidence of the vulnerability being exploited by hackers.
The high severity flaws could allow any user on the computer, even without privileges, to escalate their privileges and run code in kernel mode.
An attacker with access to an organization’s network may gain access to execute code on unpatched Dell systems and use this vulnerability to gain local elevation of privilege. Attackers can then leverage other techniques to pivot to the broader network, like lateral movement.
