Apple has been targeted in a $ 50 million ransomware attack following the theft of a large number of current and future product engineering and manufacturing programs from Quanta, a Taiwanese company that makes MacBooks and other products. for Apple.
Leakage, first reported by Register, was made by REvil, a Russian hacking group, also known as Sodinokibi. The group had already started posting the stolen images on April 20, specially scheduled to coincide with Apple’s latest “Spring Loaded” event, after Quanta refused to pay the $ 50 million ransom for the data. The group now hopes that Apple will pay for itself by May 1, promising to continue posting new leaked images daily until it does.
Quanta confirmed that its servers were breached in a statement to Bloomberg, commenting: “The Quanta Computer information security team worked with external IT experts in response to cyber attacks on a small number of Quanta servers.” Quanta also says that “there is no material impact on the operation of the company” as a result of piracy.
REvil has a history of similar ransomware attacks, Bleeping Computer points out that the group has also carried out similar hacks on Acer and other companies in recent months. But the Quanta attack – by virtue of its connection to Apple and the potential to reveal unannounced Apple hardware – marks the target with the highest profile of the group.
The company has not yet clarified the extent of the leak, but images released by REvil so far include schemes for redesigning Apple’s iMac – which, before yesterday, had not been seen by anyone outside Apple’s sphere of influence, giving credence to the fact that the documents are in -Really correct. The schemes also include warnings on almost every page: “This is Apple’s property and must be returned” and specifies that documents must not be reproduced, copied or published.
Also in the disclosed files are manufacturing charts for the Apple MacBook Air 2020 refresh already launched by Apple and a laptop that has not yet been released, which has additional ports according to existing rumors for Apple’s laptop refresh.
These documents were stolen and are being disclosed to extort Apple and Quanta. Due to the nature of their origin, we believe that it would not be ethical to report their content in detail. We have contacted Apple for comments and we will update this post with any new information.