Dell Issues Password Reset After Cyber Attack

Dell Issues Password Reset After Cyber Attack

Despite their somewhat waning popularity in recent years, Dell is still one of the biggest major PC and laptop manufacturers out there. As such, their website has many people with a registered account who sign up for news, technical support or perhaps just to get their warranty validated online. Either way, you can easily imagine that their website is a very busy place.

Why do I make this point? Well, busy websites are often a very tempting target for hackers and Dell yesterday reported that earlier this month an attempt was made to hack the website.

What Has Dell Said?

In a report via Reuters, Dell confirmed that on the 9th of November, they detected that a hacker had successfully compromised their network. They also found that the person/s were attempting to steal customer data. The good news is that they were not successful. As a precautionary matter though, Dell has contacted all registered members to get them to change their password. Therefore, if you have been contacted by Dell, don’t panic! The password change request is entirely legitimate.

What Do We Think?

Well, firstly we think that they should be credited. Not only for detecting the problem, but also seemingly shutting it down before any damage was done. Additionally, it’s certainly a smart decision to make users change their passwords. It is, after all, better to be safe than sorry.

We should also note that as the breach was not technically successful, Dell was under no legal obligation to declare it either. So, on the whole, you have to give them more than a little credit for this transparency. If only more companies were this honest with their customers!

What do you think? Do you think they have made the right decision to disclose this information? Do you think more companies should be transparent about failed attacks? – Let us know in the comments!