Acer suffers cyber attack, hackers demand $50 million ransom

Last year in June 2020, American popular smart wearable-maker and GPS service provider, Garmin fell victim to ransomware dubbed as WastedLocker. It was carried out by a Russian hacker’s gang named Evil Corp and they gave back the control to Garmin only after getting USD$10 million ransom.

Now, popular PC-maker Acer has suffered a REvil ransomware attack.

If the Bleeping Computer report is to be believed, the Tapei-based consumer electronics major has been asked to pay USD $50 million (approx. 362 crores) as ransom. It is believed that bad actors used vulnerabilities of the Microsoft Exchange server, which has been in news recently.

The group has shown conversation with Acer and also financial spreadsheets, bank balances, and bank communications as proof of compromising the security of the latter.

Also, it warned if the company doesn't respond positively, it may meet the fate of clients of SolarWinds' Orion software. In December 2020, several companies 450 of the 500 fortune companies including several telecommunication firms and accounting companies hired by state-run security agencies of the US, who subscribe to Orion software were compromised via a supply chain attack.

It is said to be the handy work of Cozy Bear, the hacking arm of Russia's foreign intelligence. They also gained access to US-based cybersecurity company FireEye, but the latter hasn't officially revealed the name of the attackers yet.

Coming back to the topic at hand, the $50 million ransom demanded by REvil to Acer is said to be the most expensive demand by a hacker group to date. The group has offered a discount of 20% if Acer complies with their demand by Wednesday (March 24) and also provide the decryptor to access the very important company information in the locked server, even offer a vulnerability report and proof of deleting the stolen files (which was taken to show proof of compromise to the company)

Must read | Microsoft Exchange mass cyber-attack: Time to enhance cybersecurity infrastructure is now

DH reached out to Acer for an official response. This is what the spokesperson said.

"Acer routinely monitors its IT systems, and most cyberattacks are well defended. We have reported recent abnormal situations observed to the relevant law enforcement and data protection authorities in multiple countries," Acer told DH.

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