Dell shipped malware infected components

Dell has admitted culpability in replacing a number of server motherboards with virus infected components.

According to the Financial Times, the issue affected four lines of servers, the PowerEdge R310, R410, R510 and the T410, and Dell is in the process of contacting all buyers of the infected hardware, said to affect less than one per cent of Dell customers.

The motherboards had been infected with the W32.Spybot worm, which opens a back door on a system and degrades network performance.

“Anybody that we think could have the slightest risk we’re contacting right now,” said Dell’s general manager of server platforms, Forrest Norrod, blaming the faulty shipments on a “sequence of human errors”.