Last month Western Digital (WD) was hit by a hacker attack. TechCrunch first reported the news on Thursday last week after the cybercriminals contacted the popular blog. WD is known as a Silicon Valley-based American computer drive manufacturer and data storage company. The hackers claim to have more than 10TB of sensitive data stolen from the storage company and are demanding more than $10 million in ransom. The hackers shared a sample of the stolen information with the tech bloggers, who verified its legitimacy.
The cyber incident happened last month, but the news is gaining momentum now because the tech giant is refusing to immediately cooperate with the thieves’ demands. Earlier this month, the company revealed that the WD had experienced a cyber incident and said they are investigating the cause. In a press release, WD stated that an unauthorized third party managed to gain access to multiple systems used within the organization. At the time, the storage company did not provide additional details about the size of the attack nor shared any additional information but just continued coordinating with law enforcement and forensic cyber security experts.
The attack has been severe as the cybercriminals forced Western Digital’s cloud network out of action for nearly two weeks. WD just managed to get the consumer service My Cloud back online, and this likely triggered the hackers, who decided to start talking to the media and provide further details about the data that had been stolen. As time passes, the cyber incident appears to be more than what was initially described by WD on Twitter as an outage and simple service interruption.
The stolen data supposedly includes customer information as well as sensitive company data such as the cellphone numbers of the company’s top executives. WD has not yet confirmed whether the leaked info includes customers’ sensitive information, such as SSNs, DOBs, and banking information. WD has also not confirmed whether they’ve lost customer files because of the security breach.
It is currently unknown who is behind the attack. The hackers have refused to self-identify but have ensured that if they do not receive the ransom from WD, they will release the stolen data onto a popular hacking website called Alphv. This could potentially harm the reputation of the publicly traded computer storage manufacturer. Even though the hackers say they are not affiliated with the host of Alph, they would likely upload the stolen info there, as it appears that WD will not be paying the ransom.
Panda Security specializes in the development of endpoint security products and is part of the WatchGuard portfolio of IT security solutions. Initially focused on the development of antivirus software, the company has since expanded its line of business to advanced cyber-security services with technology for preventing cyber-crime.
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