Fuss About Self-Signed Certificate On Dell Laptops

On the Internet fuss about a self-signed certificate which all Dell laptops would be delivered. On social news site Reddit reports reader Kevin Hicks how his new XPS Dell laptop a self-signed root certificate discovered called eDellRoot. Allows users could be attacked, for example via malware that uses the certificate.

The certificate on the Dell laptops is its own private key features that can not be exported. The key however, been found to be able to be copied. Dell user Joe Nord discovered on his laptop the same root certificate using the same private key.According to Nord Hicks and this is exactly the same situation as with Lenovo and Superfish debacle. The laptops from Lenovo came with adware that could intercept the encrypted traffic using a self-signed certificate to inject in here then ads.

In the case of Dell, however, the situation looks very different. The certificate can not be used namely to issue other certificates to perform eg man-in-the-middle attacks on HTTPS sites, says another reader on Reddit. Yet there is also criticism that Dell does not use a certificate from a valid certificate authority. Dell leaves in front of Hicks that eDellRoot is a trusted certificate and not a threat. Hicks's remark that the certificate or a security risk is the Dell Webcare team announced that the company will come with an explanation of the presence of the certificate. A spokesman confirmed to Security.NL Dell later today comes with an explanation.

Advertising Company Superfish Closes Doors After Storm Of Criticism

Advertising company Superfish, early this year in the center was a storm of criticism, the doors closed.Superfish delivered to Lenovo a program that intercepted on all kinds of laptop models SSL connections to inject ads.

The adware used for this purpose its own root certificate. Researchers managed to crack the password using the private key of the Superfish certificate. This makes it possible in some cases to perform man-in-the-middle attacks against systems running Superfish and the certificate installed. Because of the incident Lenovo Superfish decided not to deliver laptops and offered a tool to remove. In addition, there were all kinds of lawsuits.

Co-founder Adi Pinhas has now decided to close Superfish and the company's technology through a new company, Visual Just to be used. Instead of injecting ads Visual works Just to smartphone apps that can recognize pictures and can search for similar images, without any text labels are required. According Pinhas was the move to this "visual search software" is already underway, but which was accelerated by all the criticism that erupted after the vulnerability.

That's not to say Just Visual nothing to do with the ads will have. The visual search engine is in fact focused on the search for specific objects by telephone. The search engine can then show ads of similar products. In addition, the company hopes to make money on licenses for the use of technology. Well Just Visual will follow industry standards for safety and privacy, as late as Chief Product Officer Keven Lee opposite the Associated Press know.