CONSUMER COMPUTER SECURITY ALERT: The Rosen Law Firm Advises Consumers to Take Steps to Remove Security Vulnerability from Certain Dell Laptop Computers

The Rosen Law Firm, P.A. announced today that it has initiated a class action lawsuit investigation regarding a potential claims against Dell, Inc. (“Dell”; formerly publicly traded under the ticker symbol DELL) arising from its installation of a self-signed root certificate, eDellRoot, onto all Dell laptops sold to consumers beginning at least August 1, 2015 through present (“Affected Computers”). The root certificate, installed as part of a customer support application, creates a security vulnerability that could result in the theft of users’ login and passwords, and other sensitive data that a user transmits online.

Below is additional information concerning the harm to consumers and steps that you may want to take to protect yourself. If you purchased an affected Dell computer, and would like to participate in a class action lawsuit or discuss your rights at no cost to you, please contact Phillip Kim, Esq. or Christopher Hinton, Esq. of The Rosen Law Firm toll free at 866-767-3653 or via e-mail at pkim@rosenlegal.com or chinton@rosenlegal.com.

Dell has acknowledged that it installed the eDellRoot self-signed root certificate on all laptops that it began selling in August 1, 2015. The consequences of the eDellRoot certificate are that, "a malicious hacker could exploit this flaw on open, public networks (think Wi-Fi hotspots, coffee shops, airports) to impersonate any Web site to a Dell user, and to quietly intercept, read and modify all of a vulnerable Dell system's Web traffic,” according to security expert Brian Krebs. Dell marketed and sold the affected laptops to consumers without disclosing to them that their laptops contained serious security vulnerabilities that it had caused to be installed. Dell’s conduct, and failure to inform consumer, is all the more egregious as Dell had previously attempted to capitalize on a similar security vulnerability that its competitor, Lenovo, had foisted upon its customers via the Superfish adware.

All Dell laptops shipped beginning August 1, 2015 are affected.

Security experts advise removing the software. Dell has provided instructions for completing removing the eDellRoot certificate available at https://dellupdater.dell.com/Downloads/APP009/eDellRootCertRemovalInstructions.docx. Alternative means of attempting to remove the certificate have been demonstrated to fail, as the certificate will reinstall. Dell also plans to push out an update to its software that will remove the certificate beginning today.

The Rosen Law Firm focuses its practice on complex class actions around the country.

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