Dell Lost Control of Key Customer Support Domain for a Month in 2017

A Web site set up by PC maker Dell Inc. to help customers recover from malicious software and other computer maladies may have been hijacked for a few weeks this summer by people who specialize in deploying said malware, KrebsOnSecurity has learned.

There is a program installed on virtually all Dell computers called “Dell Backup and Recovery Application.” It’s designed to help customers restore their data and computers to their pristine, factory default state should a problem occur with the device. That backup and recovery program periodically checks a rather catchy domain name — DellBackupandRecoveryCloudStorage.com — which until recently was central to PC maker Dell’s customer data backup, recovery and cloud storage solutions.

Sometime this summer, DellBackupandRecoveryCloudStorage.com was suddenly snatched away from a longtime Dell contractor for a month and exposed to some questionable content. More worryingly, there are signs the domain may have been pushing malware before Dell’s contractor regained control over it.