Dell Support Assist Bios update

[Chris Hogg]

Just had a message come up on my laptop (Dell Latitude E6230) purporting to come from Dell Support Assist offering me a Bios update, tagged 'urgent'. Anyone any idea if this is genuine, or a cunning way of infecting my machine with malware that might be difficult to detect and erase? Is it something Dell do occasionally?

[Andy Burns]

if you've got the full suite of dell bloatware, then yes it's the sort of thing support assist can do.

I'd decline for now, then visit

and instead of using "auto detect" which will install the bloatware, enter your service tag which should be on a sticker under the laptop

under category = BIOS that will tell you if an upgrade is available, could be microcode upgrades for recent processor bugs, looks to me like nothing new BIOS-wise since january for your model.

[Andy Burns]

the release date is jan 2019, but it has been updated oct 2019, so maybe they're pushing it more agressivey now? so looks legit.

[polygonum_on_google]

I have found Dell Command Update quite a good way of attacking Dell updates.

Leaves you a bit more in charge.

I had a BIOS update recently (within a month) for my Optiplex 7020.

[Terry Casey]

The first thing I do when I get som,ething suspicious is to check the actual address it came from.

If it is different from what is claimed - sometimes the country code is a dead give away - it's a fake.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

Yes I got a very convincing email from ahem, tv licensing, it came from a Japanese itp address, slight give awayy, als of course, mine was paid last month, grin.

I have quite an old dell, its actually got xp on it, but looking it up it says it can run windows 10 with a bios update as its 64 bit ready. However its only a dual core with 2 gigs of ram and I suspect doing the update will probably make it into a slug! Brian

[Adrian Caspersz]

Many legitimate BIOS updates have recently been issued for processors affected by Meltdown and Spectre.

If that is what's being offered, then it might be a good idea to install them if you feel ye could be vulnerable from the theories of doom out there...

[T i m]

<snip>

There are many many people who are totally unaware of the meaning / function of the likes of 'firmware', or even software and so who never update anything, unless it's forced upon them (even if only a default setting), even if such is free and might benefit them!

Like with Windows. AFAIK, Automatic updates are the default and so they typically get done. On Linux they aren't and so they often don't (when in the hands of the same level of user etc).

My Mum sits there with an indication that an update needs to applied to her iPhone or iPad and typically it only get's 'ok'd' when I go round there.

I wonder what proportion of GPS users ever update their firmware or even maps, especially considering they are often free for life, if not the first year etc?

If I get a new-to-me bit of hardware, the first thing I might do is see if there is an update for it (and there typically is, often many that have been missed, supporting my viewpoint above).

Now, because there can be risks in doing such things, I get the 'don't fix what's not broken' thing but at the same time, the chances are it is already broken, even if it doesn't affect you right now (but might if / when you upgraded OS etc).

Cheers, T i m

[Chris Hogg]

Thanks for that. Worked a treat.

[Martin Brown]

The counter example to that is the recent Bose bricking firmware update that has made it onto the Register and uk.legal.moderated

Software generally becomes more reliable with accumulated runtime as it gets older whereas hardware gradually wears out. This doesn't apply to internet connected stuff facing hostiles but is fine for local devices.

[T i m]

<snip>

Quite, I did admit there were risks (and bricked an otherwise perfectly good Thinkpad this way, requiring me to find a good second hand mobo to get it working again).

Agreed.

Agreed.

Cheers, T i m