Dell Technologies announced a slew of security updates today that span hardware, supply chain, and data security services.

In terms of improving supply chain security, the Dell EMC PowerEdge server portfolio now comes with Secured Component Verification. This is an embedded certificate that lets companies verify their servers arrive as they were ordered and built so they don’t need to worry about any hardware compromise.

“That makes Dell Technologies the only server vendor with cross-portfolio solutions for cryptographical and verified hardware integrity,” said Sylvia Seybel, VP of security and client solutions marketing at Dell Technologies.

The certificate verifies that changes are not made to system components — such as a memory or hard-drive swap — after the server is sealed and shipped from the factory, which allows customers to more efficiently validate and deploy multiple servers, the vendor claims. It also helps customers in highly regulated industries such as financial and health care meet strict supply chain security standards.

Secured Component Verification on PowerEdge servers will be available by the end of the year.

Dell also extended its data-security services across its entire infrastructure portfolio. This includes the Dell EMC Data Sanitization for Enterprise and Data Destruction for Enterprise services, which now support the entire infrastructure portfolio and third-party products. These services allow customers to deploy infrastructure in their facilities or retire assets securely in line with the latest industry and compliance standards.

Additionally, Dell EMC Keep Your Hard Drive for Enterprise and Keep Your Component for Enterprise services are now available for the entire infrastructure portfolio. These services ensure that sensitive data never leaves customer control while parts are replaced, thus allowing businesses to comply with strict data privacy regulations.

All of these data security services are available now across Dell’s infrastructure portfolio.

The third group of enterprise security updates targets hardware security, which is important because 44% of organizations experienced at least one hardware-level or firmware attack over the past 12 months, and 16% have had more than one attack.

In its first hardware security update, Dell now provides customized boot security for PowerEdge servers. If attackers compromise the boot process, they can subvert security controls and access any part of the system. The new PowerEdge UEFI Secure Boot Customization allows IT staff to customize their server boot process to reduce the risk of boot-related attacks. A recent United States National Security Agency report about UEFI (this stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) says this standard provides “more configuration options, improved performance, enhanced interfaces, security measures to combat persistent firmware threats.”

Additionally, PowerEdge servers’ integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC) offers automated server management both at the server and remotely. “iDRAC is the remote access controller for our infrastructure products and cloud servers,” Seybel said, adding that with iDRAC customers can enable or disable a system lockdown without having to reboot.

The newest release extends the lockdown capability to include network interface controllers, providing customers more control over the lockdown. And it Enables Dell EMC OpenManage Ansible Modules to automate PowerEdge security workflows such as user privilege configuration and data storage encryption.

“Also, we are introducing two-factor authentication, as well as RSA SecurID support,” Seybel added. RSA SecureID combines multi-factor authentication with identity governance and lifecycle controls. This adds stronger security controls to iDRAC by using a risk-based approach to confirm identities and prioritize access. “This is to further verify that the right user is going to access the right products,” she said.

PowerEdge UEFI Secure Boot Customization is currently available. Meanwhile, iDRAC security updates will be available by the end of the year, and Dell EMC OpenManage Ansible Modules will be available by the end of January 2021.