Ransomware gang leaks stolen Apple MacBook blueprints

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The notorious REvil ransomware group claims to have accessed large quantities of data belonging to several top-tier tech vendors, including Apple, HPE, Lenovo, Cisco, Microsoft and others.

Uncharacteristically, it leaked some of the ill-gotten information ahead of Apple’s Spring Loaded event last night.

In a screenshot of the leak published by The Record, the ransomware gang claims it got hold of the "large quantities of confidential drawings and gigabytes of personal data" from Quanta Computer, a Taiwan-based manufacturer that fabricates laptops and other devices for some of the leading tech vendors.

Not quite right

In its leak, the gang said it has grabbed data on several products, including the Apple Watch, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and the Lenovo ThinkPad Z60m.

The post also threatened that "more and more files will be added every day," and demanded that Apple pays the ransom by May 1.

The leaked files seem to include schematics for a laptop, though it isn’t clear if the depicted information is indeed sensitive as claimed.

Furthermore, the mention of the ThinkPad Z60m raises eyebrows, since that particular laptop was released over a decade and a half ago, back in 2005.

An ananymous source familiar with the negotiations with Quanta Computer told The Record that REvil has put up a $50 million ransom demand. This is the same amount that it asked Acer for last month, though there has been no follow-up from either side on that incident.

Apple told The Record that “it was looking into the incident and had nothing to share at the moment.”

This article has been amended to reflect that Dell Technologies does not have a relationship with Quanta, which means REvil doesn't have any documents related to the popular PC vendor as claimed by the ransomware group in their leak.

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Via The Record

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With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’s TechRadar Pro’s expert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.