Apple was targeted in a $ 50 million ransomware attack following the theft of a series of engineering and manufacturing schemes of current and future products from Quanta, a Taiwanese company that manufactures MacBooks and other products for Apple.
The leak, first reported by The record, was carried out by REvil, a Russian burglary group also known as Sodinokibi. The group had already started posting the stolen images on April 20, specifically 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 to make Apple pay by May 1, promising to continue posting new images of the leak daily until it does.
Quanta confirmed that its servers had been violated in a statement to Bloomberg, comment: “Quanta Computer’s information security team worked with external IT experts in response to cyber attacks on a small number of Quanta servers.” Quanta also says ‘there is no significant impact on the company’s business operations’ as a result of the hack.
REvil has a history of similar attacks on ransomware, Bleeping Computer points out that the group has also done similar heels on Acer and other companies in recent months. But the Quanta attack – based on its commitment to Apple and its potential to reveal unannounced Apple hardware – points to the group’s highest target.
The company has not yet clarified the extent of the leak, but images leaked so far by REvil contain schemes for Apple’s newly unveiled iMac redesign – which had not been seen by anyone outside Apple’s sphere of influence before yesterday. to the fact that the documents are indeed accurate. The scheme also includes warnings on almost every page: “This is the property of Apple and should be returned,” and they specify that the documents should not be reproduced, copied or published.
The unveiled files also include manufacturing charts for Apple’s already released 2020 M1 MacBook Air refresh and a laptop that has not yet been released, which contains additional ports in line with existing rumors for Apple’s upcoming refresh.
These documents were stolen and leaked to blackmail Apple and Quanta. Due to the nature of their origin, we believe that it would be unethical to report extensively on their content. We have contacted Apple for comment and will keep this post up to date with any new information.