Dell expands cyber resilience with quantum-ready PCs

Dell Technologies has expanded its cybersecurity and cyber resilience portfolio with updates across commercial PCs, data protection systems and managed detection services.

The changes are intended to address security risks linked to artificial intelligence and the longer-term threat quantum computing poses to current encryption and software verification methods.

At the device level, Dell is adding what it describes as quantum-ready protections to its commercial PC line. These measures target lower-level firmware and embedded hardware, rather than focusing only on operating system or application security.

One update hardens the embedded controller in Dell PCs so firmware updates are checked using signatures designed to resist future quantum-enabled attacks. The aim is to prevent malicious or altered firmware from being accepted by the device and to reduce supply chain risk.

Dell is also updating its BIOS Verification tool to align with post-quantum standards. The system checks a PC's BIOS against a trusted reference stored in Dell's cloud and generates an alert if the version does not match.

Recovery tools

Alongside the PC updates, Dell has added new functions to its PowerProtect cyber resilience products. It cited research showing that only 40% of global organisations successfully contained and recovered from a cyberattack or incident drill with minimal impact.

PowerProtect Data Manager now includes an AI-powered assistant that provides contextual guidance during recovery tasks. Dell has also added anomaly detection to scan PowerStore snapshots for signs of ransomware risk, along with a unified dashboard for managing distributed systems.

For smaller sites, Dell introduced the PowerProtect Data Domain DD3410 to its data protection appliance range. The appliance delivers up to twice the backup speed and 46% faster data restores than earlier systems in its class, according to the company.

Dell has also updated the Data Domain Operating System to support Transport Layer Security 1.3. The change is intended to protect data in transit between systems and align encrypted connections with NIST requirements.

AI data focus

Dell is also extending its Managed Detection and Response service to cover PowerScale environments, where unstructured data and AI workloads are often stored. The move is intended to close visibility gaps that can arise when security teams rely mainly on endpoint tools.

Supported by Dell cybersecurity analysts, the service is designed to detect suspicious activity earlier and automate some response actions. Dell is also introducing an Endpoint Detection and Response-only option that monitors, investigates and responds to endpoint threats.

When used with Dell PCs, the service can also surface BIOS verification results. If a device's BIOS moves away from its trusted baseline, an alert is sent to Dell's managed response team for investigation.

John Roese, Global CTO and Chief AI Officer at Dell Technologies, said the company had been preparing for both AI-driven and quantum-related security risks for years.

"Quantum computing will break the encryption and digital signatures protecting data today, while agentic AI raises the stakes by increasing the value of data and autonomously shares it across teams and organisations. We've been preparing for both shifts for almost a decade through our investments in post-quantum cryptography and our approach to cyber resilience and security by design. We are continuing to bring these protections across our portfolio to help organisations navigate emerging technologies and stay ahead of tomorrow's threats," said Roese.

The push reflects a wider shift in enterprise security as companies move to protect AI training and inference environments as well as conventional endpoints and servers. As AI systems concentrate large volumes of sensitive and commercially valuable data, storage platforms and backup systems are becoming a more prominent part of cyber defence planning.

Fernando Montenegro, Vice President and Practise Lead, Cybersecurity and Resilience at Futurum, said those environments can create blind spots for defenders.

"As AI adoption expands, security teams need to protect more high-value data in areas where traditional controls may not provide adequate visibility into how threats move across AI workloads and data platforms. Dell's approach reflects this broader cyber resilience strategy aimed at reducing risk, deepening security visibility and helping organisations recover more effectively when incidents occur," said Montenegro.

Dell also pointed to customer use of its backup and recovery products in operationally sensitive sectors. In hospitality, where outages can quickly disrupt bookings, guest services and back-office systems, recovery speed and reduced disruption remain key buying factors, it said.

"In luxury hospitality, even a brief IT disruption during peak operations can have a major impact. We work with heavy workloads, and PowerProtect Data Manager's Transparent Snapshots make a real difference. We get no business disruption, lower risk of data loss and the VM backup times are cut in half. Coupled with our PowerProtect Data Domain appliance, deduplication and compression optimize bandwidth, remote backups are seamless and storage requirements are drastically reduced," said Javier González Belinchón, Director, Corporate Infrastructure & Operations at Palladium Hotel Group.

Some of the new software updates are available now, while the quantum-ready PC features will appear on new Dell commercial PCs launching in 2026.