RANSOMWARE WITH A TWIST: APPLE & QUANTA FACING $50M RANSOM TOP MACBOOK MANUFACTURER HIT, HACKERS SEEK RANSOM FROM APPLE TOO
Evolve MGA Cyber Insurance Specialists
SAN RAFAEL, CALIFORNIA – On Tuesday, Apple revealed its sparkling new iPads and iMacs. Unfortunately for the tech giant, the good vibes didn’t last long.
A New Twist to Ransomware Ransomware criminals have historically only extorted the primary attack victim, not their customers. REvil’s extortion of Apple after failing to get Quanta to pay is a new
Russian hacking group REvil executed a
tactic.
successful ransomware attack on one of Apple’s top Macbook manufacturers, and is now holding both Apple and the Taiwanese manufacturer, Quanta, hostage to the tune of a $50M ransom demand. Hackers got into Quanta’s system via the Microsoft Exchange Server Vulnerabilities which Evolve warned of last month.
As proof of the attack, REvil posted 15 screenshots of proprietary MacBook blueprints on the dark web, and has threatened to leak new data every day until either Apple or Quanta pays the record-tying ransom demand of $50M. That is the same amount REvil demanded in their attack of Acer in March.
Per Dmitry Smilyanets, Recorded Future‘s threat intelligence analyst… “This is a new approach in the double extortion nameand-shame technique, where the threat actor engages with the affected third parties after the unsuccessful attempt to negotiate ransom with the primary victim.”
Other Potential Victims? REvil appears to be targeting Apple because of their recent product release, but it should be noted that the Quanta attack may impact many companies beyond the creators of the Macbook and iPhone. (continued)