Computer maker Dell is asking for help in an ongoing probe into the source of customer information that appears to have somehow landed in the laps of fraudsters posing as Dell computer support technicians. KrebsOnSecurity readers continue to report being called by scammers posing as Dell support personnel who offer “proof” that they’re with Dell by rattling off the unique Dell “service tag” code printed on each Dell customer’s PC or laptop, as well as information from any previous (legitimate) service issues the customer may have had with Dell.
- Dell Warranty Check Multiple Service Tags Phone Number
- Dell Warranty Check Multiple Service Tags Near Me
- Dell Warranty Check Multiple Service Tags Free
- Dell Warranty Check Multiple Service Tags Online
In January, Ars Technica’sDan Goodin wrote about a guy who’d been complaining to Dell for six months about the very same problem, in which the scammers try to convince the customer that their computer is infected and in need of professional services. Dell responded at the time that its customer’s data protection was a top priority, and it reminded customers that Dell doesn’t make unsolicited calls asking to charge to fix an issue they did not report or previously request help with unless they have signed up for premium support services.
- Oct 22, 2008 Filter non Dell Machine (service tag 7) Query Dell for warranty information for each machine (one by one, but you can get up to 80 with a POST request) Fill a XLSX table with all the informations (Name, servicetag, machine type, warranty type; warranty start, warranty end, last logon and warranty validity. AutoFormat and AutoFit everything.
- I wish I had better options for doing these Dell warranty checks in bulk. Im sorry not sorry Dell API servers. I tried to get them to run the query's anytime a new machine was added to.
I first heard about this in December 2015 from Israeli resident Yosef Kaner, who reported receiving a phone call from someone with a thick Indian accent claiming to be from Dell technical support.
Use the attached script to check multiple Dell Asset tags for warranty (place all asset tags in a file called: “DellServiceTags.txt”): download: wpdmfileid=”5″ When run it uses the service tags from the text file to create a csv file (results.csv). DA: 11 PA: 67 MOZ Rank: 100. Check your HP warranty status and support options available for your HP printers, laptops, desktops and other products.
“He said that they had been monitoring my computer usage for the past couple of weeks, and that I had downloaded a dangerous piece of software,” Kaner said. “He offered to help me remove said software. Understanding that this was a scam, I asked him for a callback number. He gave me one. He also, though, knew my name and gave me the Service Tag of my PC. I thanked him and hung up. Then I Googled the number he gave me. It was a known number from a known scam.”
Almost every week this past month, I’ve received similar messages from other readers. Like this one, from Lucy Thomson of Washington, D.C. Thomson is the author of the ABA Data Breach and Encryption Handbook, and a former Justice Department fraud prosecutor.
“So I am not happy that Dell has had this breach and many people are potentially in jeopardy,” Thomson said. “I confirmed with two of the people who called on two different days, one who said he was in San Jose, CA and another who said he was in India, the nature of the PII and service records they have. All of it was correct and they have quite a bit of contact information and service records with specific dates of calls and service.”
Thomson said she called 1-866-383-4713 (the real Dell’s support line) and told the technician about having received calls every day for the previous five days from people claiming to be Dell certified technicians or who worked for Dell.
“I then told him they had all my PII and Dell service records for the computer I purchased from Dell in 2012,” Thomson recalled. “He said they had received calls ‘from people like you,’ and ‘many customers have called.’ In response to my question about why they had not sent data breach notifications, he said ‘The legal team is in charge. The legal team is working with the FBI on this.’ He said that twice. At the end of the call he said ‘we are creating a platform so this will never happen again.'”
Reader Peter Sullivan sent me this note two days ago:
I received a phone call this afternoon from a male with an Asian (Indian?) accent purporting to be a Dell support tech advising me that my computer had been infected with potentially damaging malware. As you can imagine, I was more than a little skeptical. After asking him several challenging questions, I said ‘I have two Dell computers, which one is infected?”
The caller gave me the Service Tag for my XPS 15 (L521x)! When I suggested that I would like to call him back, he told me that the support #s are very busy (!!) and I wouldn’t be able to get through. “ if I give you your Express Service Code will you trust me then?,” he said proceeded to give me the correct number.
I hung up and did a quick search, coming up with some problems from 2015 involving Dell System Detect that had exposed some Dell computers (I thought that I had responded to that issue). To be on the safe side I called Dell Tech Support and they told me that they don’t call … I wasn’t surprised.
Dell spokesman David Frink said the company has “no indication that customer information used in the sames reported recently were obtained through an external attack,” but he declined to respond to direct questions about whether the company had ruled out an insider attack, such as a current or previous channel partner that got hacked or illegally sold Dell customer information.
“Fact is, these phishing scams are increasingly more sophisticated, they are touching not only technology companies, but all industry, and we have devoted considerable resources to addressing them,” Frink said. “We have no indication that customer information used in the scams reported recently were obtained through an external attack. We continuously evaluate our internal physical and technical security measures to determine if there are additional efforts that would further ensure this customer data is secure. And, we investigate any customer complaint received when there is sufficient information to investigate.”
He pointed concerned Dell customers to information on the company’s site that warns customers to be on alert for phone scams.
“We also have provided an intake form to make it easy for customers to submit information for our teams to investigate,” Frink wrote in an email to KrebsOnSecurity. “We’re encouraging our customers to come to us with any information that could facilitate the investigations. We are investigating the issue, but can only do so with assist from customers who believe that someone tried to scam them. This is a continuing investigation, which by its nature, is based primarily on input from customers. We have no indication at this time that customer information used in the scams reported recently were obtained through an external attack.”
So if this wasn’t the result of a rogue partner, exactly how have the scammers managed to glean so much information about Dell customers and any previous service issues? Ars Technica’s Dan Goodin posited one possibility: That the scammers exploited a vulnerability in Dell computers that became public in November.
“It resided on Dell PCs that came pre-installed with digital certificates that made it easy for attackers to cryptographically impersonate any website on the Internet,” Goodin wrote. “The same certificate, it turned out, also allowed hackers to surreptitiously obtain the unique service tag Dell assigns to computers it sells.”
Goodin said that theory still doesn’t explain how scammers obtained contact information and support histories.
“The vulnerability, however, does demonstrate the plausibility that hackers could have devised a way to obtain personal details belonging to Dell customers,” he wrote. “For the time being, owners of Dell computers should presume their support histories and purchase and contact information has been compromised, and act accordingly.”
Tags: Ars Technica, Dan Goodin, David Frink, dell service tag, dell support scam, Lucy Thomson, Peter Sullivan, service tag number, Yosef Kaner
Learning has never been so easy!
I use Dell workstations and servers. I like to be able to track when my warranties and system service dates expire. I'm lazy, so if its not automated then it is worthless to me. I have been using this retrieval method for about a year in other reports and decided to integrate it into my Spiceworks implementation.
11 Steps total
Step 1: Download and install the SQLLite ODBC Drivers
Grab them from here:
http://www.ch-werner.de/sqliteodbc
http://www.ch-werner.de/sqliteodbc
If you want to use MSAccess to verify connectivity then you will need to create an ODBC connection. The script does not require this.
- Admin ToolsODBC Connections
- System DSN
- Add, Choose 'SQLLite 3 ODBC Driver'
- Data Source Name = Spiceworks
- Database Name =
- Admin ToolsODBC Connections
- System DSN
- Add, Choose 'SQLLite 3 ODBC Driver'
- Data Source Name = Spiceworks
- Database Name =
Step 2: Download the script
- Create a folder somewhere on your spiceworks server
- Download the script. Since I can't add an attachment to a How-To, get it from my server at home..
. . . . . http://dave.newbern.org/spiceworks/service.zip
- Download the script. Since I can't add an attachment to a How-To, get it from my server at home..
. . . . . http://dave.newbern.org/spiceworks/service.zip
- Unzip and save the script to a folder.
- Open a command prompt and CD to the folder.
- Open a command prompt and CD to the folder.
Step 3: Execute the script
From your command prompt, type service.vbs
If your default command interpreter isn't cscript, it will re-launch itself with cscript anyway. Interactively this is okay but if you use a batch scheduler that used PIDs to monitor the job, you may want to either:
- Change the default script interpreter to cscript. (a good idea when you manage a server that runs automation scripts anyway.)
cscript.exe //h:cscript
- Change the default script interpreter to cscript. (a good idea when you manage a server that runs automation scripts anyway.)
cscript.exe //h:cscript
- Launch as an argument to cscript.exe
cscript.exe service.vbs
cscript.exe service.vbs
Dell Warranty Check Multiple Service Tags Phone Number
Step 4: Custom Attributes
This script adds a few custom attributes to spiceworks. It may seem that they are not available immediately from within the interface. It may take a network scan before they appear or you may need to restart spiceworks. You can check for there existence by looking here: SettingsAdvancedCustom Attributes.
Even if you don't see them the script should populate them just fine.
Step 5: Add it to the Scheduled Tasks
Control PanelScheduled Tasks
- Right click, New
- Give it a name
- Right-click, Properties
- in the Run box, you need to give the full path to an .exe. so use something like:
- Right click, New
- Give it a name
- Right-click, Properties
- in the Run box, you need to give the full path to an .exe. so use something like:
c:windowssystem32cscript.exe c:binservicedatesservice.vbs
Enter credentials to run the task and schedule it how ever you want.
Step 6: Notes..
The script essentially queries Spiceworks for Dell branded computers. It then issues a web request based on the service tag (serial_number), captures the html and starts looking for data. It inserts Ship Date into the Spiceworks c_purchase_date and the takes the largest date in the warranty section (in case you extend warranties) and enters it into the Spiceworks c_warranty date.
The documentation is light. The script is fairly basic. The SQLite/ODBC is a little finicky and it doesn't seem to like all data access methods. If you modify then you may have to play a little. Whatever. it works.
Step 7: UPDATE - Sep 4, 2009
Hi everyone.
Bb king full discography torrent download pirate bay. Robert from Spiceworks was kind enough to go digging through this script and seems to have figured out the problem with the date in the reporting. (Thanks Robert.) If you need to clear your service info to reload it then this script is what you need.
Dell Warranty Check Multiple Service Tags Near Me
http://dave.newbern.org/spiceworks/cleardates.zip
Step 8: Update - Sept 30 - x64 notes
Some of you have had problems getting this to work on x64 based machines. There are 2 things that you should need to look out for.
- Make sure you get the 64 bit version of the SQLite driver.
Alldata dvd set. - Make sure that the path (in the script) has the correct path. You will need to change 'Program Files' to 'Program Files (x86)'
- Make sure you get the 64 bit version of the SQLite driver.
Alldata dvd set. - Make sure that the path (in the script) has the correct path. You will need to change 'Program Files' to 'Program Files (x86)'
Step 9: Update - Oct 22
- Changed to regular expression handling to grab dates. It is simply better and provides more accurate results.
- Ignores service tags that aren't 5,6, or 7 digits in length.
- Reorganized the code to make it easier to add in support for other manufacturers.
- - - HP support?. If you want support for this, go vote on this feature Request to get SW to pull the Product Number
- - - http://community.spiceworks.com/feature_request/show/Inventory/352
- Automatically detects the correct internet component.
- Automatically creates the c_warranty and c_warrantytype fields.
- Thanks to a contribution from Hendrik it now grabs the Service type as well as the dates.
- Added a little more error checking in hopes of working around some of the inconsistencies of the Dell support page.
- If the script is called with wscript.exe, it will re-launch with cscript.exe instead.
- Ignores service tags that aren't 5,6, or 7 digits in length.
- Reorganized the code to make it easier to add in support for other manufacturers.
- - - HP support?. If you want support for this, go vote on this feature Request to get SW to pull the Product Number
- - - http://community.spiceworks.com/feature_request/show/Inventory/352
- Automatically detects the correct internet component.
- Automatically creates the c_warranty and c_warrantytype fields.
- Thanks to a contribution from Hendrik it now grabs the Service type as well as the dates.
- Added a little more error checking in hopes of working around some of the inconsistencies of the Dell support page.
- If the script is called with wscript.exe, it will re-launch with cscript.exe instead.
Step 10: Nov 12 - Working on HP (beta?) - want to test?
We are moving our office/datacenter tomorrow and I had some 'calm before the storm' time to work on this a little. Since I don't have a lot of HP systems in inventory, I could use your help.
** Please keep the testing feedback off of the main thread. It will just clutter it up with crap. Please PM questions/responses. **
Notes:
- Both of these scripts will create a c_product_number field on your SW.
- Both of these scripts will create a c_product_number field on your SW.
- This is new for me but I had to bounce SW today before I could see product numbers and warranty dates in the web gui. Keep it mind. I should have checked to see if they showed up in a report while they were hidden from the gui. Webserver cache perhaps?
- I have had to switch the HTML component used due to the way the HP website communicates. If you get an error like 'can not create component ServerXMLHTTP' then try installing the MSXML components from Microsoft.
Download files: http://dave.newbern.org/spiceworks/hp_beta.zip
hp_service.vbs - This is the modified service.vbs file that will check for HP systems. It requires a product number that looks like 000000-000 in order to process it.
hp_helper.vbs - this will query your SW database looking for HP systems. It will try to connect to the system to look up the product number via WMI. You will need to execute this script with an account that has sufficient access (domain admin would be good.) If it finds a product number that looks right it will store it in SW. For me, this seems to work on G5 systems but not earlier. Your mileage may vary.
Currently it only pulls the warranty date (the largest date on the page.) Are all of the warranties formatted like this? (see right.) What would you consider to be a warranty type? Are there key words that I can pick up on here that would indicate? Is 'Base Warranty' it? Are you looking to see everything in Service level? I presume only under the Maintenance support section?
Step 11: Dec 10 - a 64 bit hack
Thanks to Park8751 letting me hack a little bit on his server I was able to get the script to run using the 32 bit ODBC drivers and the 32 bit WOW environment (on your 64 bit server.) I don't know why it works on my 64 bit test system without these changes but if you want to stay 64 bit, try this.
- Install the 32 bit ODBC drivers.
- Make sure you have the (x86) in your database path (in the script)
- Call the script like this:
c:windowssyswow64cscript.exe c:service.vbs
- Cross your fingers.
- Make sure you have the (x86) in your database path (in the script)
- Call the script like this:
c:windowssyswow64cscript.exe c:service.vbs
- Cross your fingers.
Eyetoy usb camera namtai driver windows 10. Please let me know if this gets you success.
Dell Warranty Check Multiple Service Tags Free
Published: Jan 24, 2009 · Last Updated: Mar 28, 2012
References
- SQLLite ODBC Drivers
219 Comments
- SonoraMarek Jan 29, 2009 at 09:10amGreat idea. No more manual checking. Thanks
- JalapenoPaul8413 Feb 12, 2009 at 10:56amVery nice. Thanks for this!
- JalapenoPaul8413 Feb 13, 2009 at 03:19amHere's an example SQL report that goes nicely with this, shows all Dell computers with expired warranty.SELECT c_warranty as WarrantyExpires, c_purchase_date as Purchased, Model, Device_type, Name, current_user FROM DEVICES
WHERE manufacturer = 'Dell'
AND c_warranty < date('now')
ORDER BY c_warranty - PimientoInampudi Feb 25, 2009 at 10:08amThank you very much!!!
- PoblanoMartin Lillepuu Feb 26, 2009 at 06:59amworks like a charm. lets see how I can extend this.
- PimientoMindy6360 Mar 3, 2009 at 01:12pmThank you for sharing - this will save tons of time!!!
- PimientoFilip4923 Mar 10, 2009 at 09:04amI have a problem using this script:C:service.vbs(175, 3) msxml3.dll: Access denied.Somebody known how to solve it?
- PimientoFilip4923 Mar 10, 2009 at 09:09amSorry for multiple questions - browser hangs
- SonoraGrahm4164 Mar 10, 2009 at 03:50pmI get the following error right after I run the service.vbs command. Does anyone know what I can check?'C:downloadDell Scriptserviceservice.vbs(23, 2) ADODB.Recordset: Item cannot be found in the collection corresponding to the requested name or ordinal.'
- SonoraGrahm4164 Mar 10, 2009 at 03:52pmI get the following error right after I run the service.vbs command. Does anyone know what I can check?'C:downloadDell Scriptserviceservice.vbs(23, 2) ADODB.Recordset: Item cannot be found in the collection corresponding to the requested name or ordinal.'
- SerranoSergio (Zenset) Mar 11, 2009 at 03:56pmJust great…! You save me over a month of manual work…! Very useful…!I just have to change de letter of the disc from C to D on my installation path and works just fine…!Thank you so much…!
- PoblanoGary P Mar 13, 2009 at 06:04pmVery helpful! Thank you!
- SonoraAllen9262 Mar 17, 2009 at 05:59pmI also recieve the error'C:binDell Scriptservicedatesservice.vbs(23, 2) ADODB.Recordset: Item cannot be found in the collection corresponding to the requested name or ordinal.'
Code: 800A0CC1
Source: ADOCB>Recordset - SonoraPatrick8386 Mar 20, 2009 at 04:36pmHas anyone gotten this to work on a 64-bit system? I think the problem is with SQLite. I don't see it in the ODBC drivers list after I run the SQLite install. If I run the SQLite install on my 32-bit XP laptop, I see SQLite in the drivers tab of the ODBC data sources administrator.
- PoblanoDavid6791 Mar 24, 2009 at 09:36amI got the same 'C:downloadDell Scriptserviceservice.vbs(23, 2) ADODB.Recordset: Item'With a little investigation turns out i cant spell. in the attributes i had types 'warrenty' as the name rather than 'warranty'.the error i believe means it cant find c_warranty which means there is a good chance you have done something similar.Works fine for me now. :D
Dell Warranty Check Multiple Service Tags Online
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