The REvil ransomware gang is demanding that Apple pay by May 1to “buy back” stolen product designs to prevent them from being leaked on the gang’s data leak site. The hackers also added that they are negotiating the sale of large amounts of confidential Apple designs and gigabytes of personal data with several major brands.
The REvil ransomware gang attempted to blackmail Apple after Quanta Computer, a leading laptop manufacturer and one of Apple's business partners, refused to contact the gang or pay the ransom demanded after the hackers allegedly stole a large amount of confidential data from Quanta's network.
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Quanta is ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) and the maker of the Apple Watch, Apple Macbook Air and Apple Macbook Pro. The company has a long list of high-profile clients, including Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Alienware, Lenovo, Cisco and Microsoft. It is the second largest laptop ODM in the world. The first place is held by Compal, which was also targeted by a ransomware gang last year.
According to Tor's payment page shared with BleepingComputer, Quanta must pay $50 million by April 27th, or $100 million after the countdown ends.
So far, the REvil ransomware gang has leaked over a dozen MacBook component drawings and diagrams on its dark web leak site, though there's no indication that any of them are new Apple.
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In a negotiation chat on the REvil gang’s payment site seen by BleepingComputer, the gang warned that “blueprints for all Apple devices and all personal employee and customer data would be put up for sale” if Quanta did not start negotiating for a ransom. After the deadline passed, the gang posted the blueprints on its data leak site.
REvil is a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) business known for recruiting collaborators to breach corporate networks, steal unencrypted data, and encrypt devices. Once a ransom payment is made, REvil's core developers and collaborators split the money they make from the ransom payment, with the collaborators generally receiving the largest share.
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The REvil gang has recently demanded extremely large ransoms in attacks targeting Acer ($50 million), Pierre Fabre ($25 million), and Asteelflash ($24 million).
Representatives for Apple and Quanta have not yet commented on the matter.
Information source: bleepingcomputer.com
